Forgiveness is an endangered virtue in our society, which seems addicted to the cancellation of people judged to hold unacceptable views. Instead, something like Orwell’s ‘Two Minutes Hate’ is triggered, where people foam at the mouth in anger in programmed ways. However, something unusual happened on Twitter recently, (I refuse to call it X, which…
Category: Comment & Analysis
Church leaders need to take part in coming Covid inquiry
We can’t forget that in our lifetime, the Government actually criminalised going to Mass, writes David Quinn Dr Tony Holohan became probably the most famous face in Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic. As the country’s Chief Medical Officer, it was he the Government turned to in order to steer us through the crisis. He chaired…
A Europe without Christian values would be a Europe without a soul
Christian democracy means putting the human person at the centre of our political action writes Manfred Weber MEP The world has been in crisis management mode for more than a decade: we experienced a global financial crisis and a pandemic. Now we are witnessing what it means having a bloody and ruthless war right on…
On synod secrecy, does Pope Francis risk destroying the village in order to save it?
As first reported by Loup Besmond of La Croix, Pope Francis apparently is considering imposing pontifical secrecy on the upcoming Synod of Bishops on synodality, not simply on opinions and votes, as was past practice, but on all issues addressed during synod discussions. The stated aim would be to protect the frankness and honesty of…
Gabon Catholic leaders hope for better conditions following coup
Fredrick Nzwili Two weeks after the military seized power in Gabon, a Catholic priest there said ordinary people feel more secure and hopeful, even as some analysts warn of a “contagious coup pandemic” in the former French colonies in West and Central Africa. On September 4, General Brice Oligui Nguema was sworn in as the…
To you glory and praise for evermore…
Donal McMahon It’s strange but in all my years of reading at Mass I had never read the psalm for Trinity Sunday (Year A) until this year, on June 4. In case the choir wasn’t there to sing it, I studied it at home. I saw immediately how different it was from the usual…
Parenting by voluntary principle…
I wrote, last week, about the reason why there’s a ‘culture gap’ between younger people, and the more mature generations – especially on issues like ‘gender wars’. Younger people often have a literal attitude to equality: everyone must be equal, and natural, or biological, differences, don’t come into the equation. There is also an interesting…
The Church needs to change to remain faithful to its mission
The Catholic culture of our childhood memories is unlikely to return, whether we would wish it to or not writes Fr Eamonn Conway When I was growing up in Tuam, Co. Galway in the 1960s, the town was a ‘mini-Vatican’. The diocesan boarding school, St Jarlath’s College, had over a dozen priests on staff. Both…
A simplistic take on the Church and sex ed
Does Sadlier really believe his teachings will lead to sexual nirvana? David Quinn asks The programme opens with a shot of a cross and the presenter informing us: “As a predominantly Catholic country, Ireland always had a complicated relationship with sex and sexuality.” Immediately, there is a problem with the narrative. It is predictable, cliched,…
Defence of Pius XII reflects concern Francis could be styled ‘Putin’s Pope’
Yesterday Crux carried two stories which, at first blush, appear unrelated. The first concerned the latest Ukrainian backlash against Pope Francis’s praise of “Great Mother Russia,” while the second covered the discovery of a previously unnoticed bit of anti-fascist graffiti from the WWII years in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Yet pushing beyond the headlines, the two stories do actually…

Breda O'Brien

David Quinn

John L. Allen Jr.


Mary Kenny


