What is meant when certain schools of psychology today warn us about our ‘shadow’? What’s our ‘shadow’? In essence, it’s this: we have within us powerful, fiery energies that, for multiple reasons, we cannot consciously face and so we handle them by denial and repression so as to not have to deal with them. Metaphorically…

Inés San Martín For a man who lashes out against misinformation, defamation, calumny and spreading scandal, even once comparing the last offense to eating faeces, Pope Francis has been a victim of several fake news cycles of his own, with one claiming he wanted to change the Ten Commandments being the latest to go viral.…

“The most fitting tribute to Martin’s legacy would be to again find that courage to cut a deal”, writes Michael Kelly The former deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness was a complex man who embarked on a complex journey. From a childhood where he witnessed first-hand the discrimination suffered by Catholics in the North to a…

Martin McGuinness turned away from the path of violence towards the path of peace and reconciliation”, writes Mary Kenny There is little doubt that opinions about Martin McGuinness remained divided at the time of his death. Norman Tebbit, the Conservative peer, could neither forget nor forgive the Brighton bomb of 1984, which crippled his wife…

Immigration policies must recognise the needs of both immigrants and their host countries, writes David Quinn Last Sunday, hundreds of churches rang out their bells in solidarity with refugees and migrants and in protest against racism and xenophobia. The initiative was the brainchild of Church of Ireland Dean of Waterford Reverend Maria Jansson. It was…

Fr Joe McVeigh He did more than most to take the gun out of Irish politics, writes Fr Joe McVeigh Martin McGuinness will be forever remembered for his key role in building the peace after almost 30 years of violent conflict, when many had almost despaired of ever finding a peaceful way forward. He will…

Martin McGuinness – the man I navigated the road to the peace process with Martin McGuinness was a tough paramilitary leader who became a statesman. It required a lot of intelligence, courage, skill and tenacity to recognise around 1990 that armed struggle, and even the twin armalite and ballot box strategy, had reached a dead…

A fitting legacy for Martin McGuinness would be a redoubling of efforts on all sides to find solutions to “our current problems” according to the Primate of All Ireland. Archbishop Eamon Martin paid tribute to Mr McGuinness as “someone who chose personally to leave behind the path of violence and to walk instead along the…

What would Ireland be without St Patrick? asks Mary Kenny What would Ireland be without St Patrick? Before Christianity, the classical world knew almost nothing of Hibernia. According to Philip Freeman, visiting divinity scholar at Harvard, “the few references to Ireland in classical sources are largely complaints that the island was a land of savages…

Many Irish Christians will have felt sadness and sympathy when Cardinal Desmond Connell died last month. While secure in his convictions, he was faced as Archbishop of Dublin with mounting difficulties, to which past practices provided few answers. He bore his office with courtesy and dignity, and tried to carry out his responsibilities to the…