If we are not willing to be troublemakers, it is no wonder that the secular culture takes no notice of us, writes David Quinn Are we still a Church of risk-takers? I’m not so sure. I think we have become increasingly risk-averse, taking the safe, soft option when choices must be made. We have become…

While public appetite for dismantling parental choice in education is low, those who value faith schools must prepare, writes Michael Kelly At the national education conference hosted by The Irish Catholic last October Bishop Tom Deenihan effectively warned that if the Church could not move more quickly on the issue of divesting some more schools…

By working collaboratively on a shared goal, religious and laypeople have better been able to help respond to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees, writes Rory O’Neill The idea of love of God and love of neighbour is a basic element in hearing the call to join a religious or missionary congregation. This idea…

Notebook Monsignor Jim Cassin died on Friday, June 5, 2020. He was a priest of the Diocese of Ossory. Dear Jim, I write this letter to you just ten days after you have gone to The Father’s House where no doubt you have received a warm welcome from the Father himself but also a wonderful…

There used to be an equestrian statue of William of Orange on Dublin’s College Green. It was ‘alternately daubed, mutilated and garlanded with orange lilies’, according to Christine Casey’s brilliant architectural study of Dublin. It survived several explosions, but finally succumbed to dynamite in 1929. King Billy’s effigy, like that of the Bristol slave-trader Edward…

The lockdown has caused huge damage and it’s simplistic to look at it only in terms of lives saved writes David Quinn Public worship in Ireland is now due to return on June 29, not July 20, as originally planned. It’s still one of the latest dates in Europe even though our outbreak was not…

The View Last week, the NI Assembly voted to reject the imposition, in Northern Ireland, of abortion legislation by the British government, which extends to all non-fatal disabilities including Down syndrome. What the British government should do now is repeal the law which was forced through parliament last year using an emergency procedure designed to…

Letter from America   The late US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously said that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. A Catholic equivalent might be that everyone is entitled to disagree with their bishop, but not to pretend he is not the bishop. Some years ago, whilst on…