Many of us are familiar with an often-quoted line from T.S. Eliot: “The last temptation is the greatest treason; to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” This, he suggests, is the temptation of the good person. What’s the temptation? In John’s Gospel, Jesus asks his listeners this question, “How can you believe who…
It was bound to happen. After over two years scrupulously taking every precaution to avoid infection, it caught me out: Covid visited me. And it took me over. It happened on a Saturday, the worst day for a priest in a one-priest parish. I woke with all the symptoms. An antigen test duly showed two…
Marilyn Rodrigues The second assembly of Australia’s plenary council closed at the weekend after two days of catching up and passing almost all of the motions in its guiding document, including a revised version of the section on the equal dignity of women and men in the Church. Members were noticeably tired after a long week,…
It wasn’t his opponents but his chaotic, rule-breaking nature that pulled him down in the end, writes David Quinn When Bill Clinton was American president, the issue of character loomed large. Was a man with such an obviously flawed character a suitable person for arguably the world’s most important job? The answer came to depend…
The second assembly of Australia’s plenary council ran from July 3-9. A plenary council has wide-ranging power, and Australia has gone through an extensive process to get to this point. Here are some key questions and answers. Q. What was the plenary council? A plenary council is a gathering of the local Church; it has…
Shannon Campbell The View “Nemo dat quod non habet.” That was the advice of our Chaplain, Fr Dominic McGrattan, when I first took up my position as chaplaincy director. As a former lawyer he’s known to throw out the odd legal maxim. Not being a Latinist myself, he thankfully supplied a translation and “no one…
Christians are enjoined to love one another, and to love their enemy as well. But that doesn’t mean that everyone has to like everyone else. It’s a simple fact that not everyone can like everyone else. The accord that is struck between two people can depend on that intangible element known as ‘personal chemistry’. As…
The Church in Ireland has given great welcome to refugees, the Ukrainian apostolic visitor to Ireland tells Ruadhán Jones Bishop Kenneth Nowakowski, recently appointed by Pope Francis as apostolic visitor to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic community in Ireland, has visited the country twice. The first time was in the 1990s – the second time was…
Some years ago, veteran Italian journalist Massimo Franco wrote a book about US/Vatican relations called Imperi Paralleli (“Parallel Empires”), arguing that the intersection between Washington and Rome has driven a great deal of history over the last two centuries. At the moment these parallel empires are intersecting again, each gripped by a maddeningly complicated legal drama. Trial…
Sri Lanka’s top Catholic prelate has urged the country’s political leaders to make good on their promise to resign this week, and he’s voiced hope that a new government will be able to bring the South Asian nation out of its current woes. Speaking to Crux about the unrest that led Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
David Quinn
Mary Kenny
Ruadhán Jones
John L. Allen Jr.