It’s as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the dead to life again. But both are possible and even easy for Our Lord,” said Matt Talbot, Patron of Alcoholics. Overcoming addiction is never easy, but it is possible with the right help. A new female addiction recovery centre will open…
Our vision is to create a team of leaders within schools who will serve as an example of faith in action, Sr Bernadette Carron DC writes The Ember programme is a Faith leadership training programme for students at senior level in post-primary schools coordinated by the Education Secretariat, Archdiocese of Dublin. The word Ember describes…
The main character in TS Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral is Thomas a Beckett, a bishop, who from every outward appearance is saint. He is scrupulously honest, generous to a fault, and a defender of the faith who dies as a martyr. Yet, at a certain point in his life, prior to his martyrdom,…
The long-serving Cardinal Walter Kasper has condemned the USA’s treatment of migrants. Every Christian party must be aware of the importance of migration, he says, also with regard to Germany. Cardinal Walter Kasper has sharply criticised US President Donald Trump. “In my opinion, the way in which the current President of the USA is dealing…
The new pope’s early academic work reveals a theological approach to authority, community and church order. Decades before his election as pope, Leo XIV – as Augustinian Robert Prevost – developed a theological vision of ecclesiastical authority and community. Today, it allows us to draw conclusions about his leadership style as head of the Catholic…
Independent TD for Tipperary, Mattie McGrath, has today strongly reiterated his opposition to the proposed World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic treaty, as the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA) meets this week in Geneva to finalize negotiations on the agreement. Deputy McGrath warned that the Pandemic treaty poses a grave threat to Ireland’s sovereignty, democratic…
A strange dispute has broken out in the diocese of Salamanca over the handling of St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Spain’s patron saint. The reason for this is the reinterment of her badly decomposed body for public veneration – an occasion last seen in 1914. Despite the lively response in the Alba de Tormes Basilica,…
How did Pope Leo XIV become a social media star in just a few days? Media experts explain why his pictures are no coincidence and what we can expect from him in the future. “It was perfect,” says historian René Schlott. He reviews the conclave and the first appearances of Pope Leo XIV. Schlott has…
Celtic Christian blessings roll off his tongue with a gentle ease, as he recites an ancient prayer, capturing ‘the spirit of the Irish’. “I weave a silence on my lips,” prayed Fr Ephrem. “I weave a silence into my mind. I weave a silence within my heart…” With our eyes closed to distractions, the tumult…
Jamesie O’Connor, one of Clare GAA’s most storied names and now a veteran teacher at the great Munster hurling nursery, St Flannan’s College in Ennis, isn’t one for romanticising the past. But when he speaks about the challenges of raising children in a modern age of smartphones and social media, you can hear the quiet…
Renata Steffens
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Martina Purdy