It is fundamentally wrong to politicise children, writes David Quinn The Dáil Chamber in Leinster House was handed over to children last week to discuss the issue of climate change. They were aged between 10 and 17 and it was part of RTÉ’s climate week, intended to raise aware of the effect humans are having…
Theresa Devlin Great progress has been made, but we must be wary of fatigue setting in around child safeguarding, writes Theresa Devlin The establishment of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (the national board) was announced in December 2005, and it held its inaugural meeting in May 2006. It…
Speaking to a group of lawyers last Friday, Pope Francis said that the Catholic Church is contemplating the introduction of “ecological sin” to the compendium of Church teaching. “We have to introduce, we are thinking about it, in the catechism of the Catholic Church, the sin against ecology, the sin against our common home, because…
Everywhere in Church circles today you hear a lament: our churches are emptying. We’ve lost our youth. This generation no longer knows or understands the classical theological language. We need to announce Jesus again, as if for the first time, but how? The church is becoming evermore marginalised. That’s the situation pretty much everywhere within…
Notebook November is almost done. During the month we remembered in many ways and on many days, those gone before us. There is something very healing about that – remembering, naming, holding on to what remains of those we knew and loved. The old song talked about year after year, the numbers getting fewer, but…
As a newspaper, we report fair and accurately without fear or favour, writes Michael Kelly Former president Mary McAleese has been at pains to deny that she misrepresented the views of Pope John Paul II on human sexuality. It’s a serious matter that requires a serious response. When The Irish Catholic first broke the story last week…
The clerical church is dying, says Fr Brian D’Arcy, now marking 50 years as an ordained priest, “and it’s not such a tragedy.” The celibate priesthood is over: the male priesthood is over. This is “a gift of the Holy Spirit” and out of such a transformation can come new seeds of life. Well, he’s…
The View There has been much discussion of misogyny in the Church following Mary McAleese’s most recent assertion that the Church has become a “primary global carrier of the toxic virus of misogyny”, and “a male bastion of patronising platitudes to which Pope Francis has added his own quota”. She had previously described the Catholic…
The establishment never misses opportunity to demonise the nuns and to blacken their reputations, writes David Quinn Dr Peter Boylan, one of the chief campaigners in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment, has been on the warpath again over the relocation of the National Maternity Hospital from Holles Street to the Blackrock Campus of St…
The SDLP, who saw themselves as the moral voice of many Northern Catholics, now inhabit the same political space as their erstwhile competitors, writes Pól Ó Muirí By the standards of Catholic bishops in the North, the statement was robust. Issued at the end of October in response to the introduction of new laws…
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Nuala O’Loan