A line runs through my childhood, the time before I went to Canada, and the time after. Aged five, the Troubles put paid to my Irish upbringing; but, I well remember bobbing for apples in Belfast at Halloween. It was a simple enough game, hands behind your back, trying to bite a bouncing apple on…
It is not the worst thing to have happened in the Cathedral. After all, St Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered there in 1170, following a conflict with the King over the rights of the church. But Canterbury Cathedral, one of the oldest Christian heritage sites, has been made to look like ‘an…
I’m shopping for a church!” an American once told me. As a cradle Catholic, the notion seemed alien to me. Yet how many of us, followers of Christ, opt to choose and create a Church in our own image and likeness, to suit how we live? “I only believe half of it,” a well-known Catholic…
It’s been ninety-five years since Bill Gribbin was baptised and he is not only living out his Christian mission, as father, grandfather and great grandfather, but as sacristan of St Michael’s The Archangel parish in Belfast. Observing him prepare the altar and the incense for a requiem mass last week, it occurred to me, he…
Then Mark Lenaghan was jailed in the 1980s, he encountered a priest who would lead him back to Christ – and along an amazing path to ordination as a permanent deacon. In the coming weeks, a fresh batch of men will take this path, including five from the Dioceses of Armagh and Dromore. They will…
Divisive, dangerous and provocative – that’s how some in the media described American activist Charlie Kirk, after he was shot dead in Utah just days ago. “The answers he gave were astonishing!” said one Sky TV commentator, who cited his “outlandish” pro-life position and Kirk’s “dislike of abortion” – as if killing a child in…
Decades ago, when British soldiers patrolled staunchly republican areas of Belfast, some received a rather unexpected blessing from a local woman who lived in Ardoyne. Whenever this devout Catholic spotted a soldier lying in an alleyway on patrol, she would open her handbag, and take out a bottle of holy water, along with her most…
Mass had just started when the children were murdered. It is not a sentence one should ever have to read or write. But even where songs have been sung, and the word of God recited in a psalm, bullets can fly from the darkness of those who seek to destroy. And so, evil disrupted worship…
Every August, Knock beckons and my friends and I hit the road for County Mayo and the annual Novena to Our Lady of Knock. The forecast was for sun – a treat as I often joke that even Our Blessed Mother went to Knock in rain. Family day at Knock was a scorcher. When it…
Sr Briege McKenna has urged Catholics to stop criticising priests, warning that negative attitudes are discouraging young men from pursuing vocations and leaving many clergy deeply wounded. The Irish-born nun, now based in Florida, has spent decades ministering to priests worldwide through retreats, healing, and evangelisation. She recently returned to Ireland to lead the 50th…