I received an anonymous letter a few weeks ago. I don’t normally read such correspondence but was about halfway through the screed when I realised it was unsigned. The letter was sent to inform me of the death of a priest-colleague, in another part of Ireland. The deceased was a paedophile. He had served time…
It’s probably the wrong thing to say, but I really enjoyed the State funeral of the late John Bruton, RIP. It was an occasion of deep sadness for his family and I did pray for them during the Mass, but I was also moved by the rituals of Church and State, so beautifully executed for…
We have Confirmation in the parish where I live, this year. Confirmation is celebrated every second year, with the liturgy alternating between our two churches. Thus has it ever been, since at least the Year Dot! In preparation for it and First Communion, a meeting was held with each set of parents. First Communion parents…
Notebook We won the county final. The rural parish where I’ve been based since 2022 took on the big urban city clubs in the biggest county in Ireland — and we won. It was some achievement for a tiny parish like ours. Some may wonder who is this “we”. I haven’t been known previously for…
Priests and others in ministry in different parts of Ireland have asked me how our new funeral policy is working out. This policy was introduced in Cork and Ross in 2021, as we left Covid restrictions behind, enshrining some of our Covid learnings regarding funerary practice. Some local pastoral concerns that had been crying out…
I was asked to preach at the diocesan celebration in Gougane Barra at the start of October. We were marking the 1,400th anniversary of the death of St Finbarr, so it was a great privilege to be asked
It’s official — the significance of Baptism in Irish parish life is the top ‘hot-button’ issue for readers of this page. In all my years of contributing here, nothing else has exercised readers in the way this topic did in the July 23 edition. Reactions have been flooding in (quoted below, with permission). My thesis that…
An irate mother of a First Communicant complained about all the hoops her family had to go through to participate in the ceremony: enrolment and Mass attendance and First Confession and everything. She might be the kind of parent so well titled by Fr Martin Delaney in these pages: a “bouncy castle Catholic”, i.e. one…
I spent a fortnight driving round Germany earlier this summer, taking in many interesting spots in central and northern Germany. These included the birthplace of Bach (Eisenach, where Martin Luther also studied), Buchenwald (with the remains of the WWII concentration camp) and Weimar. In northern Germany, I saw Kiel and the nearby Kiel Canal (which…
We have a name! (Or, Habemus nomen as the cardinal who announces a new pope might put it). At last, our family of parishes has a name of its very own. Since last September, when I took up my new West Cork coastal appointment, our pastoral unit has had the somewhat unwieldy title of “The…