Nothing quite prepares you for the intensity of Holy Week lived in a religious community. Since I entered the Dominican novitiate in 2009, every Easter has been profoundly moving, with an emotion that is communal. Together the community experiences disorientation in this week: familiar timetables are altered, familiar statues are covered, and the Lord is…
The View Pope Francis hates it. Thomas Aquinas dedicated a section of the Summa Theologica to it, analysing all the different ways we can indulge in it. Robin Dunbar, the primatologist and anthropologist, judged it to be “the core of human social relationships, indeed of society itself. Without [it], there would be no society”. We…
How can a Churchman stand by Vladimir Putin and justify his utterly brutal attack on Ukraine? But the Russian ‘pope’, Patriarch Kirill has made it clear that he is fully aligned with Mr Putin and his ideological position – that Kyiv is essentially a part of Russia, in culture, religion and tradition. “It is my…
Catholics must support a swift peaceful resolution in Ukraine to avoid further catastrophe, writes David Quinn It still seems hard to believe that a major war is taking place again on European soil. It is not the first since the Second World War, of course. Long-running conflicts took place when Yugoslavia broke up in the…
Gunther Simmermacher In 1633, at the height of the Reformation, the Black Death was sweeping through Europe, including the southern German region of Bavaria. The terrified people of one small village decided to do something to protect themselves from this pandemic: The villagers vowed that every 10 years they would perform a “Passionsspiel” – a…
More than 4 million people have fled Ukraine in the past five weeks, and half of them are children, said two UN agencies. “Children make up half of all refugees from the war in Ukraine,” UNICEF said March 30 in a media release that included data from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. UNICEF estimated that…
According to the Bible, there’s a secret that’s hidden from the amoral, known only by the virtuous. The Book of Wisdom tells us that when we are not virtuous “we do not know the hidden counsels of God, nor do we grasp the recompense of holiness, nor discern the innocent soul’s reward.” How true! How…
Lent has almost run its course. Palm Sunday approaches and, on its heels, Holy Week. This is intended to be the highpoint of the Church’s liturgy; the recalling of those sacred events of more than two thousand years ago. We will journey with Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey’s back, see him betrayed, we will…
Professor Diarmaid Ferriter – probably the most influential historian in Ireland – has called for a “truth commission” to investigate the circumstances of Irish adoption practices in the past. He estimates that up to 20,000 Irish people may have been affected by historic illegal birth registrations, and this should be now be fully investigated by…
The View It increasingly seems that the stories that should most inspire us, the lives that are illuminated with courage and love, are becoming the least often heard. Sometimes, that’s a deliberate ploy, especially when the profound courage of families who carry and love their baby with a life-limiting condition are ignored by the media. But in the past few months,…
Breda O'Brien
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser