Dublin diocese’s financial report shows it’s struggling to make up for Covid-driven income cuts, writes Ruadhán Jones As Ireland’s largest diocese, Dublin’s financial reports always make for important reading in gauging the Church’s financial health. This year’s two reports submitted to the Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA), covering the period up to December 31, 2021, were…
Ireland must play its part in combatting global warming, even though anything we do will make no discernible difference because our population is so tiny, writes David Quinn The autumn has been exceptionally mild so far and we had a warm summer. Parts of Europe had extreme weather events, including droughts. China has experienced a…
Church in Ireland offers partial Gospel for failing faith, writes Dr Tom Finegan Often when Church problems are discussed we hear about declining numbers, shaky finances, and lessening influence. Yet the problems in Irish Catholicism run deeper than any of these. The recent controversy involving Bishop of Kerry Ray Browne’s public rebuke of Fr Sean…
by Eduardo Campos Lima Letter from Brazil After the fiercest presidential campaign in Brazil’s history, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva managed to beat his rival Jair Bolsonaro on October 30 with a narrow margin of only two million votes. As soon as the South American country’s electoral authority proclaimed Lula’s victory, several world…
by Zelda Caldwell Before a gathering of religious leaders in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, a Catholic bishop from Nigeria gave an account of how his country had become a “cauldron of violence” at the hands of Islamist extremists. Addressing the G20 Religion Forum in Bali on November 3 in advance of the…
It is not enough merely to have saints; we need saints for our times! An insightful comment from Simone Weil. The saints of old have much to offer; but we look at their goodness, faith, and selflessness and find it easier to admire them than to imitate them. Their lives and their circumstances seem so…
During this month of November, we will have memorial Masses in many parishes across Ireland. In my experience these can be very moving occasions as the name of each person who died during the last year is called out and a family member comes forward to light a candle in memory of a parent, a…
Elon Musk, allegedly the richest person in the world, sometimes seems a stereotype of the eccentric billionaire. He is an extraordinary innovator in areas from neurotechnology to futuristic engineering: he has controversial views about Covid-19, thinks that Artificial Intelligence is the greatest threat to the human race, and believes we should colonise Mars. He marries…
Catholic schools’ bodies welcome developments in SPHE course, but warn it ignores ethos, writes Ruadhán Jones The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s (NCCA) draft SPHE curriculum for Junior Cycle has been criticised by Catholic bodies for “ignoring” schools’ rights to govern their own ethos, although they welcome developments in other areas. The Association of…
It is not at all clear where this whole synodal process is going to end up, writes David Quinn The Vatican has just issued a new synodal working document that is now to be studied at a continental level by the Church in the coming months. This new document is a synthesis of the papers…
Ruadhán Jones
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny