“The Pope is Catholic.” It might seem a strange way for one of the Church’s most eminent cardinals to begin a lecture, but these are strange times: just one day after Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn spoke in Limerick about how to read Pope Francis’s exhortation on love and the family, Catholic websites, news outlets and…
If Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College last week managed an impressive prelude to next year’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin through hosting two lectures and an academic seminar with the prelate the Pope has tapped as the key interpreter of his document on marriage and the family, Cork didn’t let the side down. Saturday saw…
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has warned that true reform of the Church in Ireland will not come about by tinkering with structures, but only through a radical spiritual realignment. Speaking at the weekend, the archbishop also said that change can be hindered by the fact that many people who talk of reform “are still…
The Church needs to show mercy in the context of new and more complex family narratives in modern Ireland, the cardinal tapped by Pope Francis to launch his major document on marriage and the family has said. Speaking ahead of his visit to Ireland this week to address Thursday’s ‘Let’s Talk Family: Let’s Be Family’…
Fr Gerry O’Hanlon Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice Describing Dr Martin’s Würzburg lecture as “a perceptive commentary on the situation in Ireland”, Fr O’Hanlon said that Pope Francis’ vision of a collegial or synodal Church seems the way forward in Ireland as much as the world at large. “I think it will be interesting…
If there was criticism of Pope Francis’ decision to bring a dozen Syrian refugees to Rome in April 2016 – followed by a further nine that September – it took the form of claims that this was a token move, a mere drop in the ocean that is the migrant crisis on Europe’s doorstep. For…
The Government has been urged to ensure that refugees arriving here from war-torn countries be integrated into local communities as soon as possible to aid their recovery. This comes against a backdrop of reports that fewer than a third of the 4,000 refugees Ireland has promised to accept by the end of this year have…
Ireland is home to few pictures more iconic than Vermeer’s Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid. A masterpiece of composition, colour, and light, this jewel of the National Gallery is easily passed over as a simple scene of a woman focusing calmly on the letter she’s writing, while her maid gazes out the window,…
Baroness Nuala O’Loan has described the failure of Sinn Féin and the DUP to work together as “a scandal” that has prevented funds being allocated across the North. “Our schools, hospitals and infrastructure are being starved of resources which should be available. £42m remains available and unallocated from the spring budget,” she said, adding that…
Proposals to bar oversubscribed Catholic schools from prioritising admissions based on religious grounds are untenable and make no legal sense, a leading expert on the Irish Constitution has said. Minister for Education Richard Bruton last week announced plans to deny Church-owned primary schools the right to include religion as a selection criterion when oversubscribed, stating…