The View Before I sat down to write this article on Easter Sunday evening, I went for a long walk. It was a cold dry evening and the sun was setting. As I walked along the roads near my home I observed the houses, all shut up, the cars parked, the roads quiet. A…
The View The world is a very strange place today. Whereas a couple of weeks ago we were focused almost entirely on Brexit, wondering how everything would work out, today, it seems to me we are in an entirely different world. Outwardly it looks the same; but it is utterly changed. Now we are…
The View I spent some time recently with a group of very fine priests reflecting on their vocations and on their work as priests, work which is centred on sustaining ordinary people like me and you, sometimes in profoundly difficult circumstances, nourishing us and helping us on our journey home to the Lord who made…
The View I have always found the New Year to be a very poignant time. The old year always seems very precious, as I remember wonderful moments and recall again those who have left us to go home to the Father who loves us all. The New Year seems but a moment yet to come, with…
The View There has not been much publicity for the current government consultation on abortion in Northern Ireland. It closes at 11.45pm on December 16. Responses to the consultation should inform the new proposals for the provision of abortion in the North. Readers will know that law was passed in Westminster last July requiring the…
The View There has been much discussion of misogyny in the Church following Mary McAleese’s most recent assertion that the Church has become a “primary global carrier of the toxic virus of misogyny”, and “a male bastion of patronising platitudes to which Pope Francis has added his own quota”. She had previously described the Catholic…
The View When The Irish Catholic is published this week, there will be just 18 days before abortion is imposed on Northern Ireland by the Westminster Parliament, unless the Northern Ireland Assembly is reformed by October 22. This will happen against the wishes of the elected MPs who take their seats in the House of…
The View As I write this, I am wondering what will happen next at Westminster. Parliament will be prorogued within about ten days. Prorogation means the end of a parliament. When we come back by October 14, we will have a speech by Queen Elizabeth II which will contain the government’s proposals for the coming…
The View Unless the Northern Ireland Assembly is reconstituted and an Executive is formed on or before October 21, 2019, abortion law in Northern Ireland will change utterly on October 22, 2019. 66% of women and 70% of 18-34-year-olds in the North said in a recent ComRes opinion poll that they did not want…
Some years ago, a dedicated, active, hardworking, popular priest who ran marathons for the hospice in his spare time, found himself experiencing something he had not anticipated, and did not recognise. He described those days as a time of “crisis in my ministry…my work was consuming me. I was too busy. Self-care and time off…