You think about strange things when you wake up with a bout of insomnia at 3am. One of those small-hours anxiety I’ve had is that my driving licence expires in eight months’ time. And I’m worrying whether it will be renewed. Will I pass the tests for older drivers, of alertness and awareness, and will…

Letter from Rome   When roughly 300 Catholic leaders gather in Rome from October 6-27 to talk about the Amazon, it will be the 29th time since 1965 a Pope has convoked a Synod of Bishops. For most of that span, the body’s role could have been described in the same ironic terms Bob Dole once…

Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, has urged those considering allowing priests in the Latin rite to marry in order to help solve a crippling shortage, to proceed with caution, saying marriage has not curbed shortages in his own rite. With five blooming seminaries in Ukraine alone, “thanks be to…

Notebook Some months ago, I heard a request on our local radio station for a song by Max Boyce [pictured above]. The song played was familiar to me but not so the performer. I had never heard of him before and, no doubt, that says more about me than him. In any case, I liked…

The View   If you build it, they will come. This famous catchphrase from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams is actually a misquote. In the film, an Iowa corn farmer played by Kevin Costner is walking through his fields one night when he hears a disembodied voice saying: “If you build it, he will…

Ireland is increasingly a cold house for people who hold values seen as out of step, writes David Quinn   The American Vice-President, Mike Pence, was in Ireland last week and it is fair to say he did not receive a hundred thousand welcomes. Yes, he was met by President Higgins, and Leo Varadkar and…

One of the most cheerful developments over the course of my lifetime has been the advent of cheap clothes. In my mother’s generation, elegant garments were beyond the reach of most people, and especially most women, who often yearned for pretty things. Look at the photographs of yesteryear: people of means did have decent clothes,…

The Papal visit to Africa   Last week marked the beginning of Pope Francis’ six-day visit to Africa, the fourth time he has visited the continent since his appointment. Exploring topics such as war, corruption and climate change, the Pontiff sought to move the hearts and minds of people whose countries have been racked by…

Modern-day palliative care approaches and hospices have made it such that uncontrolled symptoms at the time of death are rare, writes Chris Garrett   Caesar Augustus died peacefully at the age of 75 in the arms of his third wife Livia; unusual for that time given the bloody and traumatic deaths of some other Roman…