Michael Kelly is an award-winning writer and broadcaster specialising in religious and social affairs. Born and raised in Northern Ireland, he attended the Pontifical University St Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he obtained degrees in philosophy and theology and the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome where he studied social institutional communications. From 2002-2005 he was an Editor in the Central Information Service of Vatican Radio. In this role, he travelled with Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI on overseas trips. In 2005, he returned to Dublin to take up the position of Deputy Editor with The Irish Catholic newspaper, succeeding as Editor in 2012. He is a regular contributor to programmes on RTÉ, BBC, UTV, CNN and Al Jazeera. He also have extensive experience offering media training and coaching in the voluntary sector. Mr Kelly is a weekly columnist with Ireland’s largest-selling secular newspaper the Irish Independent and has been published in The Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, The Irish News, The Guardian, Our Sunday Visitor, Catholic World Report, the National Catholic Reporter and the National Catholic Register. He writes from Ireland for Catholic News Service of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Micheal finished his stint as Editor of The Irish Catholic in January 2024 and has taken up the position of Director of Public Affairs for Aid to the Church in Need Ireland.
The first time I was eligible to vote was in the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Marking an ‘X’ in the box to endorse the peace accord only took a second, but it remains one of the proudest moments of my life. Growing up in the North, our lives were characterised by…
The Pope’s appointees to the College of Cardinals reflect the diminished role of Ireland in an increasingly globalised Church, writes Michael Kelly For the first time in more than 40 years, Ireland will not have a vote in a Papal conclave if there were to be a vacancy of the Holy See. Since he…
Faith-based schools have an important role in the future, but we have to stand up for them, writes Michael Kelly The religious landscape in Ireland has changed dramatically in recent decades. Perhaps nowhere was that more evident than in the contrasts between the visit of St John Paul II in 1979 and that of…
If prizes for hypocrisy were going, it would be hard to narrow down a short-list these days. Politicians, of course, have always been capable of the greatest of stomach-churning double-standards and u-turns. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar – citing his experience as a doctor – repeatedly told the Dáil that he was against abortion, then mysteriously he…
During his tenure as Minister for Health, the now Taoiseach drew considerable media ire for his perceived disinterested analysis of the nation’s hospitals. One satirist dubbed him Leo ‘it was broken when I got here’ Varadkar. The Taoiseach presides over a style of governance that sees ministers as bystanders rather than the people with their…
The first time I visited Jerusalem, I was an impressionable 21-year-old. I fell in love with the place. Everything about the city was intoxicating to me: the sites, the smells, the sounds, the food, the religious diversity cheek by jowl…I was captivated on my first visit and it was to be the beginning of a…
At many parishes across the world, Massgoers enthusiastically sang “Easter glory fills the sky” on Sunday morning. It was dark plumes of smoke that filled the skies above churches in Sri Lanka as parishioners gathered for the most important festival in the Christian calendar. Occasions like Easter Sunday and Christmas Day are usually occasions of…
For the believer, Holy Week and Easter is the culmination of the Faith when we mark the saving death and lifegiving resurrection of the Saviour. Even if the non-religious relegate Easter to a mere festival of overindulgence in chocolate eggs, the glory of this festival transformed our world. The Carpenter of Nazareth revealed in the…
Shortly after his election to the papacy six years ago last month, Irish newspapers predicted with rare confidence that Pope Francis was set to appoint two Irishwomen to the College of Cardinals. The would-be Princesses of the Church were said to be former president Mary McAleese and Trinity College-based theologian Linda Hogan. At the time,…
Pilgrimage Supplement 2019 – Pathways With Purpose The Holy Land opens up the Scriptures in a way that touches everyone who goes there, writes Michael Kelly It’s not for nothing that the Holy Land has often been referred to as the ‘fifth Gospel’. I have been blessed to participate in more than a dozen…