The Passion and the Cross by Ronald Rolheiser (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99 hb) Lent approaches, and many will be looking round for a book which will provide them with reading during the weeks to Good Friday and Easter. For readers of this paper, and for the many other publications where his columns are syndicated around…
Augustine: Conversions and Confessions by Robin Lane Fox (Allen Lane, £30.00) In the history of Western civilisation St Augustine has a special place. Just how special many may not realise. In any academic library the works of the Greek and Latin Fathers in their original (say in the standard edition of Migne) occupy a great…
John Henry Newman: A Portrait in Letters edited by Roderick Strange (Oxford University Press, £30.00) Over the centuries biography has changed. When James Boswell published in 1791 his landmark life of Dr Samuel Johnson, he revealed that he had adapted the new method of Rev. William Mason in his life of Gray, in allowing the…
The Four Gospels: Following in the Footsteps of Jesus by Maurice Hogan SSC (Veritas, €14.99) This interesting book on the four Gospels seems to have grown directly out of the author’s own experiences. Fr Maurice Hogan is a Columban Father. After he was ordained, back in 1965, he went out to the Far East, working…
The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros written by Galawdewos, translated and edited by Wendy Laura Belcher & Michael Kleiner (Princeton University Press, £27.95) Here is a really remarkable book on which to begin the New Year, a book that will open up for many a new horizon of Christian culture and faith.…
Peter Costello reports from the National Archives on the release under the 30-year rule of confidential state files from 1985
Garrett FitzGerald meets the Pope On March 28/29, 1977 Dr Garret FitzGerald, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, in Italy for an EEC Summit, paid a visit to the Vatican, during which he had the opportunity of an audience with Pope Paul VI. So much at least was known to the press, who seem to have…
Most people think they are aware of the size of Ireland and its boundaries. But a series of files now released, dealing with different aspects of policy, suggest we may all be unaware of just how large the national territory actually is. One file, for instance, deals with the boundaries of Dublin. A special order…
These days the Christmas story has become – with the star over the stable, the infant in the manger, the shepherds, the three kings and the wicked King Herod – so familiar that we rarely if ever look back to see what the Gospels actually say about the Nativity. It often surprises readers to find…
Recorded by Marco Polo, circa 1272