A Co. Kildare doctor, Adrian McGoldrick, who is recovering from the coronavirus, has warned others that an attack of Covid-19 can leave them with heart conditions and other health issues. “Don’t think that you can get the virus and that you will not suffer,” he has said. “Treat this virus with respect…this is going to be…
Category: Comment & Analysis
Covid-19 provides a fresh focus on benefit of home-schooling
The View Between this week and next, schools across the country are due to reopen. Parents will be sending their children back to a school building for the first time since March, but this September many will be wearing a new uniform: a face mask. Children will be told to keep their distance from their…
Applying both mercy and standards to ‘Golfgate’
While we think we have become a less judgemental society, we have simply found new things to be judgemental about, writes David Quinn The revelation that 81 people, including some sitting politicians and other very senior members of the Irish establishment attended a golfing dinner in Clifden recently has caused understandable outrage among many members of…
Learning as we go
As parishes adapt to new ways to celebrate rites of initiation, technology is easing the transition, writes Jason Osborne In the current climate, preparation for the sacraments has been grievously complicated. The Catechetics Council of the Irish Bishops Conference, convened by Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick Diocese, identified a gap in the preparation of school…
Catholic media hostile to the Pope does a disservice to the Church
Letter from America Christopher White In a moving essay published earlier this month in America magazine, the writer Mike Lewis chronicles how the division in the Church over Pope Francis has divided his own family, with his elderly (now deceased) mother spending her final years on earth saying that Francis has confused the Church. “My…
The invitation to courage…
Courage isn’t one of my strong points, at least not one particular kind of courage. Scripture tells us that as John the Baptist grew up he became strong in spirit. My growing up was somewhat different. Unlike John the Baptist, as I grew up I became accommodating in spirit. This had its reasons. I was…
What the pandemic denies us, technology makes up
Notebook During the week we re-scheduled a date for First Holy Communion. It is another re-scheduled date in a year of cancellations, postponements, and disappointments. The hope is that the new date will go ahead and that the day the children have waited for will come, be lived, enjoyed and forever remembered. That, of course,…
So much for having a ‘universal’ outlook
I have friends who are on holiday in Italy at the moment, and they are having a wonderful time. Access to the historic monuments is spaced and well-arranged. Pompeii is as awesome as ever and Naples as full of life and charm as it always was. The lakes are fabulous (even if the Med is inclined…
American Catholics are faced with a terrible choice in the election
The View The US election poses yet another difficult choice for Catholics. Yes, Joe Biden plays on his Catholic heritage to the extent that he has featured his 2016 meeting with Pope Francis in campaign advertisements. However, in that same video, he also talked about meeting a group of nuns the same day, “lovely women”…
The culture of death now has its sights on newborns
More and more doctors will be willing to end a life deliberately and doctors who disagree will be driven out, writes David Quinn Eight years ago, during the furore following the death in a Galway hospital of Savita Halappanavar, the then bishop of Kilmore, Leo O’Reilly, warned that introducing abortion legislation even in a limited…

Mary Kenny
Maria Steen
David Quinn


Fr Ronald Rolheiser


Breda O'Brien
