As local and European elections loom, pro-life supporters can play a part in influencing the outcome writes Eilís Mulroy A recent Sunday Independent poll asked members of the public what were the issues of most concern to them and which will influence how they vote at election time. Issues like immigration, health and housing were top…
Category: Comment & Analysis
Care of parents a ‘gift’ the Constitution must protect
Concern for a baby’s development at the heart of ‘woman in the home’ clause, writes Fr Brian Kavanagh Paragraph 1 of article 41.2.1 of Bunreacht na hÉireann states a truth that needs to be acknowledged, re-iterated and emphasised. In 1937 when the Irish Constitution was ratified, it was the woman who stayed at home to…
Muted reaction to papal letter hints at Catholic-Jewish strain
When I arrived on the Vatican beat more than 25 years ago, a bitter cross controversy at Auschwitz and tensions over the passion play in Oberammergau both were making global headlines. It was shortly before the release of John Cornwall’s Hitler’s Pope, reviving debates over Pius XII’s alleged “silence” on the Holocaust, as well as Pope…
Why Ireland needs another John Bruton
In a sense, it was more than John Bruton who was being laid to rest last Saturday following his sad death. It was also the remains of Irish Christian Democracy because John Bruton was a proud Christian Democrat and the last properly Christian Democratic leader of Fine Gael, and our last Christian Democratic Taoiseach. I…
Paris Archdiocese reveals grandeur of Notre Dame Cathedral’s reopening
Caroline de Sury The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, scheduled for December 8, will be “six months of celebration and praise,” the archbishop of Paris said in a pastoral letter. The iconic cathedral will reopen five years and 10 months after the devastating fire in April 2019. Archbishop Laurent Ulrich gave some details in his…
No Gloria during Lent
Fr John Harris OP The old Irish saying warns us that “you’ll never miss your mother ‘til she’s buried beneath the grave”. During Lent the Church drops the Gloria from the Mass but it returns with great gusto at Easter. Last month I wrote about the ‘Silence of God’ and how this can be a…
Lenten literary companions
The Catholic Difference The traditional Lenten practices of intensified prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are spiritual disciplines to be followed along the six-week pilgrimage from Ash Wednesday to the Easter Triduum. As I suggested in Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches, that journey can be lived as a kind of annual catechumenate-for-the-already-baptized, in which we join the…
Michelle O’Neill – symbol of social change?
There’s a theory that if women ruled the world, the world would be a nicer, kinder place – and politics less confrontational. It hasn’t always been borne out by female leaders from history, who, from Catherine the Great to Margaret Thatcher have included warrior queens and steely autocrats. But now, Stormont is carrying out a…
A referendum that ignores the trojan work of mothers
The View On March 8, one of the amendments to our Constitution that you are being asked to vote on seeks to remove the recognition and protection given to the extraordinary role that women and mothers play in society. In fact, a ‘Yes’ vote would remove the word mother from the Constitution entirely. As well…
Giant steps needed as new D&C Bishop takes reigns
Despite enormous challenges there are many green shoots, and the process of reform and renewal is already underway, writes Michael Kelly It’s unlikely that mandarins in the Vatican pay a great deal of attention to political news coming out of Belfast, but there was a certain symmetry that Down and Connor’s new bishop was appointed…



John L. Allen Jr.
David Quinn


George Weigel
Mary Kenny
Wendy Grace
Michael Kelly