Sometimes you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing to celebrate in being Catholic and Irish in modern Ireland. Hostility towards the Church is extremely high and truth be told it was always going to intensify in the run up to the visit of Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families. A poll…
About six months before Benedict XVI was due to visit Britain in 2010, a rather unfortunate memo from the foreign office was obtained by The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The fruit of a brainstorming session amongst officials, the paper was called ‘The ideal visit would see…’ and included suggestions that the Pope’s visit could be marked…
There’s a depressing sense of déjà vu in the Church as allegations continue to multiply that the former Archbishop of Washington DC Theodore McCarrick sexually took advantage of young seminarians. Dr McCarrick – who resigned from the College of Cardinals at the weekend – is also accused of two counts of sexual abuse of children.…
The visit of Pope Francis this August will be a tremendous moment of grace for the Church in Ireland. It’s the first papal visit since the historic trip of St John Paul II in 1979 and only the second time that a Bishop of Rome has set foot on Irish soil. Speaking at the ancient…
We’ve become depressingly familiar with using terms like ‘dark chapter’ to reflect on certain periods of Irish history – particularly the 20th Century. You’d be forgiven for thinking that until the last few years, the story of the Irish State was one solely of darkness and misery. True, the past wasn’t all great – but…
Editorial Comment Turning a minority into a creative minority Amidst the obvious hurt and disappointment felt in the wake of the passing of the referendum on the Eighth Amendment, those who stood up for the voiceless unborn and voted ‘No’ on May 25 can feel rightly proud of their stance. This is not a…
In the Bible, the whole of salvation history is one crisis after another: expulsion from Paradise, the destruction of Babel, the Flood, exiles, and the obliteration of the monarchy. The history of the Israelites in the Old Testament – God’s Chosen People – is a story of being stripped of everything that they believed gave them…
Pro-life campaigners have vowed to continue to speak up for the right to life of unborn children despite an overwhelming vote paving the way for abortion on demand up to 12 weeks. With final results from all 40 constituencies, citizens voted by 66/4% to 33.6% to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. John McGuirk…
Voters have opted to remove the constitutional right to life of the unborn from the Constitution, according to referendum exit polls. The vote will pave the way for legislation that will permit abortion on demand up to 12 weeks. The RTÉ poll suggests a large majority have voted to change the Constitution. It found that…
Theologians and those who reflect on religion and culture often ponder to what extent Catholicism was actually ever deeply embedded in the Irish psyche. This is not an issue about religious practice or the dominant position of the Church in Irish society. Fr Oliver Rafferty SJ has observed that during the 1950s – thought by…