With some honourable exceptions, we don’t have journalists in Ireland, we have 
 cheerleaders, writes John McGuirk   “Excellent investigative Journalism in the Sunday Times”, tweeted Irish Independent columnist Colette Browne on Sunday morning, in response to the extensive report the London-based paper had just published laying out the multiple alleged failures of Boris Johnson’s…

Letter from Rome   A Polish software developer has announced a new computer game called Pope Simulator is to be released next year. The game opens with a conclave in which the player is elected Pope, and then presents various scenarios that require decisions. “Our idea assumes the possibility to use, among others, the pope’s so-called…

Christopher White A new study in the US finds that while young people are experiencing heightened levels of loneliness and isolation as a result of social distancing, they are not experiencing a decline in their Faith. Among those surveyed, 35% of respondents said that they are actually experiencing an increase of Faith and 46% attested to…

Notebook   Recently, I had a conversation with a friend whose husband died some months ago. She is desperately lonely and that loneliness is made far worse because her children and grandchildren cannot visit her during these Covid-19 Days. But it is the loss of her husband, her best friend that brings the greatest loneliness:…

Just as the coronavirus (Covid-19) took hold in America – and all over Europe – the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, familiarly known as Harry and Meghan, launched their new project. This is a charitable foundation called ‘Archewell’, and it will replace their previous ‘Sussex Royal’ brand, which, having chucked their relationship with British royalty,…

The View   Before I sat down to write this article on Easter Sunday evening, I went for a long walk. It was a cold dry evening and the sun was setting. As I walked along the roads near my home I observed the houses, all shut up, the cars parked, the roads quiet. A…

We shouldn’t take for granted the moral revolution that Christianity started in the world, writes David Quinn   Sometimes you read something that really sticks in your mind. Recently I came across one of those facts, namely that the first hospital in Wuhan, the city in China where this coronavirus originated, was founded by an…

Letter from Rome Christopher 
White   On the same day that Pope Francis was elected in 2013, the head of the World Council of Churches (WCC) was meeting with colleagues discussing how to “develop a wholeness in our ecumenical work” when he offered the example of Francis of Assisi. “He [Francis of Assisi] is a…

Eduardo Campos Lima   Catholic leaders in Brazil have criticised the response of the country’s President Jair Bolsonaro to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, saying he has not implemented common measures such as social distancing. The Church in Brazil has defended the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendations, an attitude that many of Bolsonaro’s backers see as…