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.
Christians in the land of Jesus are living yet another episode in the drama that is their long Good Friday. In recent decades, the Holy Land has haemorrhaged its Christian population to such an extent that people are now talking about the very real and tragic prospect of a Holy Land without a living and…
Synodality is about rebalancing decision-making in the Church between bishops and laypeople, Prof. Massimo Faggioli tells Michael Kelly Sometimes in Church history, an idea that has been brewing for some time just starts to percolate down, and its moment arrives. The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) arrived almost out of nowhere when the elderly Pontiff John…
I must admit, I was a very infrequent Mass-goer (if that is the word) for a couple of years. When the Covid-19 pandemic started and Mass ‘went online’, I tried for a week or two, but I soon discovered that sitting at my kitchen table in front of a laptop ‘virtually’ attending Mass and ‘virtually’…
A key adviser to the worldwide synod has said that the Church in Ireland must seize the energy of the event to put parishes on a “genuinely missionary footing”.
Wherever one finds oneself on matters of ecclesiastical politics and bureaucracy, there is no doubting that the Roman synod that concluded at the weekend was the most momentous event in the life of the Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
“We had hoped, but…” is what Cleopas told the hidden Lord on the road to Emmaus about the experience of desolation in the early Church following the Crucifixion.
As representatives of the global Church in the Synod in Rome enter an intensive phase of debate on contentious issues such as women priests and same-sex blessings, participants have heard pleas to avoid taking divisive stances. As delegates commenced work on their hotly-anticipated final document meeting due this weekend, Dominican theologian Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP…
Ireland-Vatican relations are now better than they’ve been in a long time, senior Vatican diplomats believe. It comes after the latest audience in which Pope Francis hosted President Michael D. Higgins at the Vatican last Thursday. The meeting was the fourth such engagement between President Higgins and Pope Francis, following previous meetings in the Vatican in 2017 and 2021 and…
The issue of understanding tradition is a major theme at the synod, writes Michael Kelly from Rome The Church must understand Catholic teaching as a “living tradition” rather than legalism, a theological adviser has told the global synod meeting in Rome. Australian Fr Ormond Rush — one of the world’s leading scholars on Vatican II…
The general consensus here at the Synod of Bishops in Rome is that it’s good to talk. Some people are even learning that it can also be good to listen. The beauty of the papacy as we now understand it in the Church is the ability to transform ecclesiastical culture and even ecclesiastical speak, and…