Gina Christian Pope Francis has evoked both praise and protest for his outreach to LGBTQ persons during his decade-long papacy, as he has offered warmth and welcome while upholding the Catholic Church’s teaching on human sexuality. “My experience of Pope Francis has been hope-filled and also frustrating,” Dr Ish Ruiz, a gay theologian and post-doctoral…

Recently our bishop, Paul Dempsey, wrote a pastoral letter for Lent. He was encouraging the work of parish pastoral councils throughout the diocese. Some weeks earlier, he celebrated Mass in the cathedral in Ballaghaderreen, where parish pastoral councils from around the diocese were commissioned. It was a wonderful occasion with more than 300 people in…

One of the regrettable trends now emerging in several countries across the western world is the erasing, or sometimes even disappearance, of history. I notice such lamentations on French media, where commentators deplore the decline of historical knowledge. It’s also perceptible in Britain and the United States. Douglas Murray, the British author of The War…

It was great to see the plight of Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez brought to public attention by The Irish Catholic recently. The story arose from a parliamentary question posed by Carol Nolan, TD. Deputy Nolan does sterling work drawing attention to unpopular causes, along with many of her fellow Independent and minority party TDs. Nonetheless,…

One way or another, we are going to be living in a future that is increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence, writes David Quinn Over the past couple of decades we have already seen how machines such as smartphones and tablets have become so all-pervasive. These are very different from the earlier sorts of machines that…

Talk of Irish joy in Prague must have seemed strange to delegates given that the only voices represented were of hurt, anger and alienation, writes Fr Andrew McMahon   While its ‘final document’ is — at time of writing — still awaited, the European stage of the Synod on Synodality effectively concluded with the widely…

Ireland has never quite grasped the significance of the vision and thought of St John Henry Newman writes Deacon Brett Lockhart The death late last year of Fr Ian Ker, (1942-2022) the world’s leading authority on the life and thought of Cardinal John Henry Newman may have gone largely unnoticed in Ireland, but his definitive…

Fear of clericalism must not be a reason for any reticence in promoting vocations to the diocesan priesthood, writes Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan In the synodal conversations which were held around the country in preparation for the Synod on Synodality in the Autumn of 2024, no mention was recorded of the need to promote vocations to…

The Pope’s Exorcist is a new movie that stars Russell Crowe who plays the role of Fr Gabriele Amorth who was an exorcist for the Vatican and the Diocese of Rome until his death in 2016. The film puts the spotlight on the occult, how we view the existence of evil and the person of…

On Ash Wednesday I listened to a thoughtful homily about how we should approach Lent, in a personal capacity. The priest emphasised that we didn’t have to quit something for Lent – we could also embrace something, by way of good works, for example, instead.  We could devise a schedule for ourselves on what we…