Letter from Rome In a seemingly dramatic decision this week, three-quarters of America’s bishops voted to move ahead with a controversial document on the Eucharist despite objections that it could disrupt Church unity and set the stage for a fatal showdown with US President Joe Biden. The key word in that sentence, however, is “seemingly”,…

Myanmar Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon urged citizens Sunday to hold onto hope as fighting in the country escalates, telling them to pray for the leaders of the nation’s violent coup and insisting that hatred will never lead to a solution. Pointing to the day’s Gospel reading in which Jesus calms a storm threatening to…

Notebook My uncle Syl (Cotter) had an unusual job. Every time his mother had another child, it fell to him to do the circuit of her siblings with the news. This was in the era of no phones, when even letters were slow (and expensive for poor people). When my father was born in 1917,…

There are several Christian sects which do not subscribe to infant baptism, such as the Baptists, Anabaptists, Pentecostalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Plymouth Brethern. For people like the Anabaptists, baptism is valid only when the candidates confess their faith in Christ and request to be baptised. The Mormons also practice adult baptism. What characterises most of…

The View Hearing the news on Sunday morning June 6 that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancée Carrie Symonds had been married privately in Westminster Cathedral, I wrongly assumed, for which apologies, that the RTÉ newsroom must have confused Westminster Cathedral with Westminster Abbey, which is Anglican. Given the strong stance of the…

Efforts to undermine the Mother and Baby Homes report does a disservice to survivors, writes Ruadhán Jones When one of the authors of the recent Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes – historian Prof. Mary Daly –was reported as saying that the commission had discounted hundreds of statements made…

Irish media make it appear simple and humane to give intended parents automatic legal rights, but surrogacy is complex, writes David Quinn A campaign in favour of the rights of Irish people who use international surrogacy to have children has been substantially stepped up in the last couple of weeks. As usual, the ethical pitfalls…

Religious families in the North could be disproportionately affected by the two-child policy, writes Chai Brady A decision to deny child welfare supports for the third or subsequent children born into families struggling financially may have gone unnoticed in the south of the island, but it is causing “deeper poverty” in the North, according to…

Letter from Rome Every kid knows that bringing a report card home to the parents is, to a large extent, a challenge in framing things your way. A disappointing C in English? “Everybody knows Mrs Smith is the toughest grader in school … that’s like an A from anybody else.” A surprising B+ in math?…