In one of her final acts as Miss Universe 2015, devoted Catholic Pia Wurtzbach has made a public donation of personal items to Caritas Manila towards helping the Church’s efforts for the poor in her native Philippines this Christmas. During a meeting with Cardinal Luis Tagle on December 12, just ahead of the competition to…
Courtney McGrail
Meath schoolboy Ethan ecstatic with his own papal message
Pope Francis has brought some early Christmas cheer to a Co. Meath schoolboy who wrote to the Pontiff, seeking a hug when he visits Ireland in 2018. Six-year-old Ethan Toner was prompted to pen his letter when, on returning to a new term at St Dympna’s NS in Kildalkey, he felt unsettled and visited the…
Bishop’s intervention is encouraging
Dear Editor, Bishop Kevin Doran’s intervention in support of Pope Francis over Amoris Laetitia (IC 15/12/2016) is encouraging, and surely to be welcomed by all parties, especially given how it would take particular effort to claim the bishop lacks either intelligence or orthodoxy. Ever since the synod process began in 2014, a vociferous online fringe…
A little something for the ‘ideas’ file
Dear Editor, Fr Conor McDonough’s column of December 15 – ‘In praise of books at Christmas’ – reminded me of an older notebook in your paper where one Maolsheachlann O’Ceallaigh wondered about what middle ground there is between, say, introductory books on St Thomas Aquinas and scholarly articles on the Angelic Doctor (‘Beyond Catholicism 101’…
The strain of it all…
Being a dad is tiring work, pupils in Senior Infants, Guardian Angels’ NS, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, discover when performing the Christmas story in their annual Nativity play. Photo: Anne Collins
‘Outrageous’ call was correct
Dear Editor, No doubt there will be some think Bishop McAreavey over the top in describing as “outrageous” the Dáil’s failure to condemn as genocide the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but I am not among them. The bishop is absolutely right to call the scope of the Dáil motion on the activities…
Don’t give up
Dear Editor, I was pleasantly surprised to read in your paper of December 15 that almost 40% of people in the Republic of Ireland plan to see Pope Francis when he visits Ireland. With curiosity likely to increase over the next two years, I would expect the 11% who are undecided to come to think…
2016 books of the year
In these pages some of our regular reviewers provide a brief appreciation of their best most interesting books of the year, a selection of very varied reading which others will also enjoy.
World News in Brief
Christian umbrella group calls for action on church collapse The Christian Association of Nigeria, the umbrella body for Christian denominations in that country, has alleged that poor enforcement of building codes was directly responsible for the December 10 fatal church collapse. Investigators state that the official number of dead in the incident at the Reigners…
BBC acknowledges falsely accusing wartime Church of ‘silence’
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has acknowledged that it incorrectly accused the Catholic Church of failing to speak out or act against the persecution of Jews in Europe during World War II. During a BBC news broadcast in July, covering Pope Francis’ visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp, a reporter stated: “Silence was the response…