Europe has been wracked by heatwaves this summer, and while we’ve largely had the opposite problem, keeping your head when the heat comes is key, writes Jason Osborne Much of the continent has been subjected to scorching sun this summer, with wide swathes of Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland and more consistently visiting the 30’s and…

Liam Fitzpatrick Personal Profile Fr Yanbo Chen felt lost. Working in a job he didn’t enjoy, he turned to his faith and a few Catholic monks to provide him with guidance. The monks presented Fr Chen with a piece of paper that changed his life. “I kneeled down to prayer, and I pulled a little…

Our faith tells us that we have much to be grateful for but we rarely live as though that’s the case, writes Jason Osborne The pandemic was a real wake-up call for me when it comes to gratitude. I spent the better part of lockdown thinking and complaining bitterly about the sorry state of affairs, which…

Liam Fitzpatrick Personal profile Sleepless night-induced eyebags aside, most college students enjoy their first true taste of freedom in third-level education, seizing the opportunity to grow and develop before the ‘adult world’ whisks them back to reality. But for Michael Tierney, college caused him to “drift” from his Catholic upbringing, meaning he relied on Christ,…

The internet is a very recent development and not one without its dangers, writes Jason Osborne The weather this summer has left an awful lot to be desired and as a result, we may be inclined to spend more time indoors and on the internet than we would otherwise. Though a very recent innovation, the…

Liam Fitzpatrick Personal profile Stepping off the plane at Dublin Airport and making his way to Shannon, Fr Francis Kochuveettil was nervous. He’d lived in India all his life, giving Mass 2-3 times a day, and heard horror stories about declining attendance and vigour in European churches. Fr Kochuveettil is one of many international priests…

A great many people would probably acknowledge the pursuit of happiness as the goal undergirding many of the choices they make as they live out their lives. However, how many of us truly find it? It’s not as easy a thing to come by as many of us have heard our whole lives. So when someone…

Liam Fitzpatrick When Fr Richard O’Riordan launched his memoir Roots in Exile, his family raced to support him. He shared that the book would launch in Athlone, and his cousins booked their tickets. Only, Fr O’Riordan didn’t mean Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland – he meant Athlone, Cape Town, South Africa. “So…they had to change their…

There are two kinds of analytic philosophers: the ones who like formal logic, and the imposters. I, alas, am one of the latter. Something about seeing arguments represented by symbols instead of words puts my brain completely on the fritz. In university I used to spend ages slaving through the formalisations of arguments in papers…

Insult and bitterness are all the rage in modern discussions about the deep topics, but as Catholics we must model a different way, writes Jason Osborne I’m not sure if it’s always been like this, but discussions today about many, many topics – be it religion, politics, or otherwise – are more often fraught, tense…