The Kerryman’s sometimes disturbing spirituality is a summons to a greater appropriation of faith writes Prof. Michael W. Higgins As we begin a new year with so many geopolitical challenges, ecclesial turbulences, and economic uncertainties on the horizon there are always grounds for hope, new discoveries, grace-filled epiphanies. The best of times and the worst…

Peacebuilder Fr Alec Reid was remembered at a special celebration in his honour at the Redemptorist monastery of Clonard in Belfast last weekend. Organised at the behest of the Co. Tipperary and Co. Antrim GAA boards, the memorial Mass saw the champion Senior All Ireland hurling team join with their northern counterparts to both remember…

Conor Lenihan By sheer stroke of luck, this year a friend offered me his chateau in the Dordogne, France, for the Christmas period. After a quick family consultation we decided to take up the generous offer. Dordogne lies between the Massif Centrale and the Pyrenees mountain range that firms the border with Spain. On the…

Paul Keenan attended the ‘Laudato Si’ and Catholic Investing’ Conference in Rome It is a sad truth of our modern world that the subject of financial investing, with its language of ‘portfolios’ and ‘funds’ is an exercise in eye-glazing disinterest to most who perhaps believe that the pursuit is confined to so-called ‘money men’ operating…

As Catholic Schools Week begins, the CPSMA’s Seamus Mulconry speaks with Paul Keenan With the closing of the first month of the year, it is all too clear to those across Ireland involved with – and in defending – Catholic education that 2017 is set to be as busy a period as the preceding 12…

Cathy Burke Cathy Burke describes a new choral project for Dublin’s primary schools Catholic Schools Week has long been welcomed in Ireland with many of its regular features, e.g. Grandparents Day, looked forward to eagerly. It is clearly of value to continue to celebrate the core events, but it is also important to give regular…

Leading campaigners tell Greg Daly about the realities of Ireland’s worsening homeless crisis DePaul CEO Kerry Anthony describes herself as a naturally optimistic person, but faced with the worst homeless crisis that she has seen in 20 years of working with homeless people, she occasionally finds herself asking herself in dismay how we have got…

Greg Daly talks to First Things editor RR Reno about what the Trump presidency means “Populism is the spirit of the moment,” says R.R. Reno, editor of the American journal First Things, pointing to what he sees as key to the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. “Populism has a cultural and spiritual…

People living with a disability need to be at the heart of development, Catrina Sheridan tells Michael Kelly Sightsavers is an organisation on a mission. When we meet, the recently-appointed CEO of Sightsavers Ireland Catrina Sheridan is brimming with enthusiasm about plans for the year ahead. At heart, the work of Sightsavers is quite simple:…

Irish bishops travel to meet Pope Francis filled with hope and realism, writes Archbishop Eamon Martin This weekend the Irish bishops travel to Rome to begin a two-week pilgrimage “to the threshold of the apostles” (ad limina apostolorum). It is 10 years now since the Irish bishops were last called to make their ad limina…