Henri Nouwen once suggested that if you want to understand the tragedy of the Second World War, you can read a hundred history books about it and watch a thousand hours of video documentaries on it, or you can read the Diary of Anne Frank. In that single memoir of a young girl imprisoned and…
At the end of July, the Department of Education announced that the topic of pornography will be included in a revised curriculum to be taught in our schools. While there is nothing wrong with discussing the topic per se, there are concerns about how it will be taught – as something morally neutral, or worse…
When the news broke about the shocking, homicidal attack on the author Salman Rushdie in New York state, my mind went back to early 1989, soon after his controversial book The Satanic Verses was published. London It was, as I recall, a Sunday afternoon, and we were taking our ease in our London flat in…
Most Irish Catholics feel woefully ill-equipped to share their faith, but the desire they have to do so is heartening writes Michael Kelly “Our spiritual growth is stunted. As adult members of the Church, we are not sufficiently grounded in our faith, and do not have the confidence in speaking about our love of God,”…
A vile act has prompted almost no debate at all about radical Islam and its threat to the values of the West, writes David Quinn Almost all societies have a concept of ‘blasphemy’, which broadly speaking means to mock the most deeply held beliefs and values of a society. Historically speaking, those beliefs and values…
Despite Ireland rising in the human trafficking watchlist, we have a lot to do, Ruadhán Jones hears This year, for the first time since 2017, Ireland has risen in the annual Trafficking in Persons report’s ranking, from Tier 2 Watchlist to Tier 2. And yet, the report, conducted by the State Department in the US,…
The characters of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul inhabit a universe that Catholics will already be familiar with, writes Jason Osborne My wife and I have been hooked in recent months by legal drama and crime series Better Call Saul as we raced to catch up in time for its ending this week. Just…
By now, Pope Francis has denied that he’s on the brink of resigning so often that it’s virtually become part of his verbal “Greatest Hits” collection, akin to his rhetoric on the evils of clericalism or the dignity of migrants. Although he’s 85 and suffering from acute pain in the right knee related to osteoarthritis,…
Pope Francis’ plans to visit the central Italian city of L’Aquila and its basilica August 28 fuelled speculation of a possible announcement of his resignation, which he has firmly denied. L’Aquila’s basilica is the burial place of St Celestine V, who issued a decree declaring the right of a pope to voluntarily resign, and then…
At the end of the day, all of us, believers and non-believers, pious and impious, share one common humanity and all end up on the same road. This has many implications. It’s no secret that today religious practice is plummeting radically everywhere in the secular world. Those who are opting out don’t all look the…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny
Michael Kelly
David Quinn
Ruadhán Jones
John L. Allen Jr.