The fact that five million children under the age of five will die this year due to extreme poverty is something that should motivate the world to act, according to Pope Francis. Speaking at a summit in Rome with some of the world’s most powerful financial officials, the Holy Father also alluded to the situation…
Perry West A prison ministry in South Carolina offering catechetical formation and sacrament preparation has helped change the lives of five inmates brought into the Church in the winter. The inmates at Perry Correctional Institution had been attending RCIA in the prison since July 2019. Three of the men were baptised at a December…
Thirty years ago, John Jungblut wrote a short pamphlet entitled, On Hallowing Our Diminishments. It’s a treatise suggesting ways we might frame the humiliations and diminishments that beset us through circumstance, age and accidents so that, despite the humiliation they bring, we can place them under a certain canopy so as to take away their…
Notebook I’m sure there are other similar parishes around the country, but in my pastoral experience I have never experienced any community like the people of Ballycallan. After my appointment as curate in 1992, I visited the church for the first time and I was shocked and depressed. I had just returned from studying in…
A lot of things happen in this world because people feel that it’s time for a change. The fashion industry is the supreme example of this. If skirts are short this season, they’ll be long next season. If trousers are flared today, they’ll be skinny tomorrow. Fashion editors are practiced at catching this zeitgeist: ‘out…
The View “All of us here today understand an eternal truth: every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and the sanctity of every human life. “When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation.…
Once during a baseball game in high school an umpire made a very unfair call against our team. Our whole team was indignant and all of us began to shout angrily at the umpire, swearing at him, calling him names, loudly venting our anger. But one of our teammates didn’t follow suit. Instead of shouting…
The Notebook A cousin was speaking with me recently and she told me she was in London for a weekend, with her two young sons, to visit her sister and family. They went for a day trip to London and travelled on a number of trains and by underground. Later in the evening, her younger…
I am not registered to vote in the current election, so my perspective is, perhaps, somewhat detached. But I certainly admired John Waters for deciding to run as an independent candidate for the constituency of Dun Laoghaire. John is from Roscommon but has lived for most of his adult life in the former port town.…
The Kingdom of God is not just a future hope. It is a present reality and it is marked by attitudes such as gentleness and mercy, commitment to peace, hunger for what is right and commitment to the truth (Mt. 5). It is closely connected with our care for those who are hungry and thirsty,…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny
Maria Steen