The View The pandemic has left an already battered Church facing even more challenges, including financial woes. Great uncertainty hangs over 2022 but that is true of every year. Do we have unrealistic expectations of safety and comfort? Our ancestors had lower expectations of life because they knew disaster could strike at any moment. I…
People want and need the faith, so we should offer it to them, writes Ruadhán Jones Towards the end of last year, this paper reported on a new survey which found that 51% of 18 to 34-year-olds pray regularly, compared with 24% of over-50s. This news, we were told, is a hopeful sign and should…
The Sunday Gospel This Sunday we celebrate the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, marking the beginning of his public ministry. He has emerged from the 30 years of what we call his hidden life. Since Jesus was without sin, he did not need to submit himself to the ceremonial bathing that John the…
Hindu nationalists falsely accuse missionaries of exploiting the vulnerable to win converts, writes David Quinn Mother Teresa is one of the most loved figures of the 20th Century, and in the eyes of millions of Catholics, a saint. It’s probably for this reason that she also comes under continual attack. The most famous of the…
There is no guarantee the proposed synod will rekindle the Church’s missionary zeal, writes Kingsley Jones The Covid-19 pandemic has been a crisis for Catholics in more ways than one. Not only have we had to deal with a medical emergency, but we’ve also been ambushed by the spirit of our times. While our right…
The Dáil debate on whether to accept the Treaty opened on December 21, 1921. The Treaty had been signed early on December 6. The debate took place in the low-ceilinged two room lecture hall, on the second floor of what is now the National Concert Hall. My memory, as a UCD student who attended lectures…
Recently NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope into space, the biggest and most expensive telescope ever built. It will take six months for it to travel a million miles from the earth, find its permanent place in space, and then start transmitting pictures back to earth. Those pictures will be such as have never…
Notebook I am about to misquote Oscar Wilde (or use his sentence structure for my own ends); please bear with me. To get away for four days with all the priests of the diocese for a retreat in the midst of a global pandemic might seem lucky, but to do it again the following month…
For almost two years now, and probably for months to come, our lives have been dominated by the pandemic and the restrictions it has placed on us. It has catapulted doctors, scientists and public health experts generally into positions of pre-eminence where their word can barely be questioned. Such an eventuality was predicted decades ago…
A former Labour MP, in Britain, Ann Keen, certainly achieved a personal and political goal this past year of 2021. She succeeded in getting the Westminster government to announce an inquiry into forced adoptions in Britain between the 1950s and the 1970s. Mrs Keen, former parliamentary secretary to Gordon Brown, has also called for an official…
Breda O'Brien
Ruadhán Jones
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny