I can understand Leo Varadkar being pleased and relieved that Marine Le Pen was defeated as French presidential candidate. There is a track record of racist ideas with her party – and besides, the Euro would have plunged in value if she had succeeded. So, even on practical grounds, we are spared yet another financial…
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, and especially since Russia’s recent brutal invasion of Ukraine, there has been a queue of European nations applying to join NATO – the western military alliance led by the United States. Fourteen new states joined between 1999 and 2020, and the most recent applicants are…
Emmanuel Macron, who is likely to remain President of France, was educated mainly by the Jesuits, at the Lycée la Providence in Amiens, and he chose to be baptised a Catholic at the age of 12. And according to a poll carried out by Ifop, 28% of French Catholics voted for him in the first…
How can a Churchman stand by Vladimir Putin and justify his utterly brutal attack on Ukraine? But the Russian ‘pope’, Patriarch Kirill has made it clear that he is fully aligned with Mr Putin and his ideological position – that Kyiv is essentially a part of Russia, in culture, religion and tradition. “It is my…
Professor Diarmaid Ferriter – probably the most influential historian in Ireland – has called for a “truth commission” to investigate the circumstances of Irish adoption practices in the past. He estimates that up to 20,000 Irish people may have been affected by historic illegal birth registrations, and this should be now be fully investigated by…
EU diplomats have been told by Sinn Féin that Europe must prepare for the reunification of Ireland – and that the EU must take the same encouraging attitude to Irish unity as it did to the reunification of Germany. “Our European partners must be energetic and proactive in advocating for Irish unity at every opportunity,”…
There’s currently a map of Europe on display on social media asking the question ‘Would you fight for your own country?’ Perhaps an apt question during St Patrick’s week. Portugal and Spain are on 28% and 22% respectively, and Italy on 20%” According to this geographical graphic, 38% of people in the Republic of Ireland…
The terrible events in Ukraine are evoking memories of the great famine of 1932-33, when up to three million Ukrainians were starved to death by Joseph Stalin’s deliberate policies. Ukrainians have a special word for that genocidal event – the Holdomor, or ‘terror famine’ – which bears some comparison to the Nazis’ Holocaust. I had…
Many strategic and political experts have described the tragic situation in Ukraine as a watershed in international affairs, and a quantum leap into a new world order. Alignments are changing, neutral countries – even Switzerland – are taking sides, and the European Union has moved swiftly to supply arms to defend Ukraine. In recent decades,…
I thought that the “handshake of peace”, which we used to exchange in pre-Covid times, was a lovely gesture during Mass. It was friendly, linking people together, and an expression of community. It was also egalitarian. You shook hands with whoever happened to be next to you in the pew, and, in busy city churches,…