In respect of denominational schools, Education Minister, Richard Bruton is following in the path of his two immediate Labour predecessors, Jan O’Sullivan and Ruairi Quinn. That is to say, he is investigating ways of reducing the influence of the Churches over our education system, especially at primary school level. That influence, it should be said…
Inés San Martín On February 11, Pope Francis sent an envoy to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, not to rule on the credibility of the alleged Marian apparitions taking place at the site since 1981, but to assist with pastoral issues. Speaking to Crux, a source close to the matter said that Archbishop Henryk Hoser of Warsaw-Prague, Poland,…
“No-one wants them.” Across the plethora of reporting of the plight of Myanmar’s tortured Rohingya community, no single phrase summed up the plight of a people so precisely as that employed by Pope Francis on February 8. During his weekly General Audience, the Pontiff chose to make the despised Muslim minority community the subject of…
In the Hebrew Scriptures, that part of the Bible we call the Old Testament, we find a strong religious challenge to always welcome the stranger, the foreigner. This was emphasised for two reasons: first, because the Jewish people themselves had once been foreigners and immigrants. Their Scriptures kept reminding them not to forget that. Second,…
David Quinn offers an analysis of the Irish Church for the new papal nuncio First of all, welcome to Ireland. You arrive at a crucial point in the history of the Catholic Church in this country. Everyone wishes you well in your new job although there will be many different opinions as to what…
There is “pressure from those who no longer go to Mass regularly but want the consolation of the Church when it comes to a death”, writes Michael Kelly Few things attract more controversy in a parish that a decision to cancel a Sunday Mass or reconfigure the weekend liturgical timetable. There’s often an undercurrent from…
Mary Kenny writes that “we are in much darker, much more distressing territory” as the conflict surrounding abortion continues Those organising the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution – which recognises the unborn as a human life – are hoping to follow the example, and the success, of the same-sex marriage referendum.…
Fine Gael fig-leaf gathering is arousing more than a little suspicion, writes Paul Keenan From the outset, there have been those voices who argue that the current Citizens’ Assembly, rather than giving voice to the popular will, was actually a diversionary tactic to shift the blame for any move towards introducing abortion to Ireland from…
Every Republican president since and including Richard Nixon, with the possible exception of the first President Bush, has caused huge controversy. Even before Watergate, Nixon was a controversial figure, in no small part because the US was embroiled in the Vietnam War, an entanglement begun under President Kennedy. Reagan was controversial because of his hardline…
One of the dangers inherent in trying to live out a life of Christian fidelity is that we are prone to become embittered moralisers, older brothers of the prodigal son, angry and jealous at God’s over-generous mercy, bitter because persons who wander and stray can so easily access the heavenly banquet table. But this isn’t…
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Paul Keenan