Adding detail is one of my favourite things about decorating a room. I love how a few simple ornaments and soft furnishings can make such a difference. In fact, it’s a great way to add colour to your room if you’re not quite bold enough to have peacock blue walls! It’s easy to pick up…
Courtney McGrail
Are bishops blind to intimidation in Catholic schools?
Dear Editor, Your October 22 front page headline ‘Some Catholic teachers feel “intimidated” in faith schools’, makes for very sad reading. Prompted by this and your August article on the quality of religious education (RE) in secondary schools, I have reflected upon my experience as principal of two English secondary schools. English bishops organise regular…
Good things come in small packages
Dear Editor, There was a major statistical error in Mary Kenny’s piece on the rise of strictly Orthodox Jews in Britain (IC 22/10/2015). The UK Jewish community is just under 0.5% of the total population not the 5% she quoted. This amounts to a community of just under 300,000 out of a total UK population…
From Maryfield to Padua
Students Holly Leech and Orla Carty describe a school pilgrimage to Italy
Ambushes, close escapes and the ‘execution of spies’
“The men will talk to me”: West Cork interviews by Ernie O’Malley ed. Andy Bielenberg, John Borgonovo and Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc (Mercier Press, €16.99)
St Teresa of Avila’s way to God
St Teresa and the Our Father: A Catechism of Prayer Aloysius Rego OCD (Teresian Press, £6.00)
A lament for a Greece in turmoil
Greece Through Irish Eyes by Richard Pine (Liffey Press, €22.95)
A world of resources we should know about on the ‘sixth continent’
“Hell hath no fury like a Catholic scorned on Twitter,” as someone once remarked, and there’s no getting away from the fact that the Catholic internet can sometimes seem like a strange and overheated place. It’s perhaps not surprising that it can become unbearable when collective discernment exercises like the synod cause excitable commentators to…
US votes to defund Planned Parenthood over abortion scandal
US lawmakers have voted to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business, which has been caught selling aborted babies and their body parts. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a bill to defund the controversial organisation after the scandal emerged. “Women have the most to gain from congressional action to reroute these tax dollars to community…
World’s bishops issue climate change appeal
Church leaders representing five continents have appealed to climate negotiators to approve a “transformative” and fair, legally-binding agreement that sets global temperature limits and decarbonisation goals to save the planet from climate-induced catastrophe. The representatives of bishops’ conferences from around the globe signed the appeal in a renewed push to encourage climate negotiators meeting in…