It’s hard for a child to have to go to bed in the middle of an evening when the rest of the family is still celebrating. Nobody wants to go to bed while everyone else is still up. No one wants to miss out on life. Remember how as a child, tired and unable to…
Easter 2022 has come and gone, trailing both satisfaction and disappointment in its wake. Some were convinced the crowds would return this Easter, given that this year provided the first set of Holy Week ceremonies permitted in Irish parishes since Easter 2019. Some reported more people than expected, many more parishes reported fewer. I was…
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992, and especially since Russia’s recent brutal invasion of Ukraine, there has been a queue of European nations applying to join NATO – the western military alliance led by the United States. Fourteen new states joined between 1999 and 2020, and the most recent applicants are…
Shannon Campbell The View On Ash Wednesday past, our chaplain, Fr Dominic McGrattan, invited students to consider what it is that makes a cross a crucifix? Crosses, we know, come in all shapes and sizes. Some are jewelled, others are intricately carved. I wear one my grandmother gave me when I was a child. What…
The Church in Germany’s synodal pathway is the biggest threat to Church unity since the Reformation, writes David Quinn The Catholic Church in Germany has embarked on what it calls a ‘synodal pathway’ to re-examine teachings and practices of the Church in light of the abuse scandals. But the path it appears to wish to…
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said something to the effect that we reach moral maturity on the day we realise that, ultimately, we have to choose: genuflect before something higher than ourselves or begin to self-destruct! Simone Weil had a similar idea. She consistently affirmed that our deepest longing was to find someone or something…
I’m writing these reflections in Holy Week and later this evening I will join my colleagues to celebrate the Chrism Mass during which we will renew the promises made at ordination. Much has changed since that July evening in 1986 when I first made those promise and so this annual renewal causes me to reflect…
Emmanuel Macron, who is likely to remain President of France, was educated mainly by the Jesuits, at the Lycée la Providence in Amiens, and he chose to be baptised a Catholic at the age of 12. And according to a poll carried out by Ifop, 28% of French Catholics voted for him in the first…
The View It is the evening of Palm Sunday as I write this – just a few hours ago we came home from Armagh where the annual Mass for ‘the disappeared’ was celebrated by Archbishop Eamon Martin. It was a very poignant and sad occasion as we gave thanks for the recovery of the bodies of…
It is time to step up and embrace the call to prophetic witness, writes David Quinn A strange thing has happened since the abortion referendum of 2018, namely the Church in Ireland has almost completely stopped talking about the issue. Church leaders rarely preach about marriage and the family either, or more accurately, about why…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Nuala O’Loan