Intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face.” When George Orwell wrote these words in his proposed preface to Animal Farm, he was not describing prison or state censorship. He was describing a far more personal failure – the moment when a journalist knows the truth and decides, for reasons…
With the recent celebration of St Valentine’s Day, various expressions of the tinsel of love were on display. Most of it was fun, but all of it inadequate. Still, all such expressions help us touch the hem of something deeper and keep open a portal to love’s sacred depth. The plot of the film P.S.…
It is that time of the year again, where everyone scrambles to find at least one thing they wish to avoid for the next 40 days. Some find it a way to regain some sort of stability in their lives, others find it a near annoyance. Options weren’t a thing back in the day however.…
They left knowing the risks because the risks had already been named: fever, isolation, death. West Africa was not imagined. It was spoken about plainly, as a place where many did not survive long. They went anyway. The women who would become the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles entered mission with their bodies first.…
As we enter this holy season of Lent, we are invited into a deeper encounter with a truth at the very heart of our faith that through baptism we are not merely marked with a sign, but drawn into a life of communion, participation, mission; a life of discipleship. This Lent, the Irish Synodal Pathway…
“Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”, says Pope Leo XIV in week 5 of his Dei Verbum catechesis. Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome! In today’s catechesis we will look at the profound and vital link that exists between the Word of God and the Church, a bond expressed by…
A human life is beautiful and complex. It is often like a jigsaw puzzle, where each new insight acts as a fresh piece, reshaping how the whole is seen. Yet there is a tendency to reduce people to one thing or another, to place them neatly in a box. What is often forgotten is that…
Raised aloft, in Greater Belfast, a sixty-six-foot-tall cross illuminates the night sky. This impressive landmark embodies a story of hope—a story of people who, like the church itself, have risen through adversity. St Bernard’s Catholic Church, whose tower the cross crowns, rose in 2003 from the ashes of an arson attack that utterly destroyed the…
In the days leading up to the feast day of St Valentine, which happens to fall on a Saturday this year, the Carmelite priests and staff that occupy Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin city centre will be preparing for one of their busiest weekends of the year, with couples young and old traveling to pray…
Waterford is a city defined by its love of hurling. The nation’s fifth-largest urban centre echoes with names woven deep into GAA folklore: Ferrybank on the northern banks of the River Suir; Erin’s Own, dominant through the 1930s and ’40s; and the indomitable Mount Sion, who still sit atop the county roll of honour. But…