Walking with Ignatius by Arturo Sosa SJ, in conversation with Dario Menor, prologue by Sr Jolanta Kafka RMI (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£19.95) In conversation with a respected journalist, the Superior General of the Jesuits provides some reflections that will provide, so to speak, a theme for the ‘Ignatius 500 Year’ we are facing into. The key idea is that…
Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?: The World Facing the Pandemic. The Statio Orbis of March 27, 2020 by Pope Francis (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, €17.25; available through Knock Shrine Online Store) “For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives,…
Maynooth: A College across Four Centuries edited by Salvador Ryan and John Paul Sheridan (Messenger Publications, €50.00/£40.00) This compilation of Maynoothiana has been prepared to celebrate the 225th anniversary of its foundation with a backward look or two at earlier events. It is the kind of book which the many thousands of those associated with Ireland’s…
Recently congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, US representative in Washington for Georgia’s 14 congressional district, a lady deep sunk in controversies of all kinds, raised a few more eye-brows by her reference to the “Anglo-Saxon heritage” on which “these United States” are raised. She is, of course, one of those who have in any case little…
The designation the other week by the United States of the massacres of Armenians in Asia Minor between 1915 and 1923 as genocide was an important step in satisfying the call for justice. But that particular passage of brutality was only one of many actions taken by the Ottoman Empire and the republican government of…
Art, Ireland, and the Irish Diaspora: Chicago, Dublin, New York 1893-1939, Culture, Connections, and Controversies by Éimear O’Connor (Irish Academic Press, €35.00/£35.00) First off it has to be said that this is a remarkable book, which will be read by anyone interested in the course of Irish culture since the Irish Revival in the 1890s down…
Peace-building and Catholic Social Teaching by Theodora Hawksley (University of Notre Dame Press, US$42.00, paperback/US$100.00,hardback; €50.00, paperback/€80.00, hardback) Dr Theodora Hawksley is associated with the Jesuits in Britain and specialises in peace studies, black theologies and other explorations of the essential connections between Catholic social teaching and the realities of the world we live today. This…
St Patrick’s Day and Easter coming so closely together this year, set my mind running back over what we know about the earliest years of Christianity in Ireland, more especially around Dublin. Despite the assurance with which many people speak about this period, there are many mysteries about the events of the process of ‘national…
Pilgrimage: Journeys with Meaning by Peter Stanford (Thames & Hudson, £25.00/€30.00 approx.) Peter Stanford, a former editor of The Catholic Herald, is also the author of a long series of books that explore aspects of Christianity from a Catholic point of view which manage to appeal to a wide audience through his skill in making the often…
The Best of Benedict; An Irish Perspective edited by Dualta Roughneen (One by One Press/Alive Newspaper, available from Knock Shrine Bookshop and Mayo Books, €12.99 plus postage) This is not, as the title might at first suggest, an anthology of the writings of the Pope emeritus. These now span many decades of theological investigation and social comment,…