If we genuinely trust scripture, our own experience, and our own sanity, we can only conclude that God has a sense of humour, and a robust and sneaky one at that. Where’s the evidence? A generation ago, Peter Berger wrote a remarkable little book entitled, A Rumor of Angels. Unlike Aquinas, Anselm, Descartes, and a…
Notebook In recent days, I attended a class reunion of my Maynooth ordination class (1987). We have managed to meet every year since we left Maynooth. Like everything else, Covid had its say, so we have not met since 2019. In earlier years, we moved around the country, with a different classmate arranging the reunion…
We didn’t talk a lot about the British royal family when I was growing up in Dublin – those far-off days were before the era of mass media and talking about royalty wasn’t considered, understandably, a republican virtue. But I do recall, aged six, the occasion when Elizabeth II became Queen of England, in 1952,…
The renewal and revival of the Church in Ireland needs to acknowledge the dying of the former model, writes Garry O’Sullivan Synodality and its listening process has been like following a prescribed cocktail of drugs. There’s all the ‘uppers’ of openness, listening, hopes and joys but then there’s the ‘downers’ of “we’ve been here before”,…
It is no good saying we ought to cut carbon emissions when we are doing little or nothing in our own lives to help the cause along, writes David Quinn What is a ‘sin against the environment’ that is in need of confession? Last year, the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England launched a…
Given the death late Friday of Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was 94, what’s often described as the Vatican’s “old guard” has taken a significant blow. Sodano had been the Secretary of State to two popes and the former Dean of the College of Cardinals, and he remained massively influential in shaping the Vatican’s internal…
On Tuesday May 24, Cardinal Joseph Zen, retired bishop of Hong Kong, made a court appearance and pled not guilty to charges that led to his arrest earlier this month, saying in a Mass later in the day that Christians must “steel themselves” for defending the faith. Zen, 90, and three other trustees of the…
Farewells can be hard. When we love someone who is going away, there’s always a sadness, and a particularly heart-wrenching one when that loved one is going away in death. Yet, we know from experience that at the end of the day farewells are not so much a death as a transition. One way of…
Fr Billy Swan The recent controversy over the ownership of the National Maternity Hospital brought the issue of Catholic ethos sharply into focus. The central issue played out in the media was that medical procedures in the hospital should not be influenced by Catholic ethos. Why? Because a Catholic ethos, it is assumed, is an…
Is stealing wrong? I think most of us have been taught that it is, deriving from the Ten Commandments. Theft hurts not only the victim, but the common good, since it diminishes trust in society. But in Britain, Andy Cooke, chief inspector of Her Majesty’s Constabulary, has instructed his officers to ‘go easy’ on those…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.