A third of Irish adults over the age of 50 report feeling lonely some of the time, according to a study carried out by Trinity College Dublin. Among those over 75, loneliness is even more prevalent. Unsurprisingly, loneliness is often accompanied by depression. A certain degree of loneliness is, I think, inevitable in the older years.…
The View All saints are extraordinary, in the sense that they manage to turn their lives and wills over to God and through his grace achieve heroic virtue. John Henry Newman is perhaps more extraordinary than most because of the extent of his natural gifts. James Joyce wrote to his long-suffering English patron, Harriet Weaver,…
Truly Catholic schools have the resources to help students tackle worries, writes David Quinn The Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Phonsie Cullinan, has issued a letter to primary schools in his diocese cautioning them against using yoga and ‘mindfulness’, especially during religion class. He warns “yoga is not of Christian origin”, and that mindfulness…
State failures in diplomacy marked the canonisation debacle, writes Chai Brady Given the instrumental role St John Henry Newman played in laying the foundations of what is now the State’s largest university, the Government’s tardiness in organising a representative for his canonisation was baffling for many. It seemed obvious that the Irish Government didn’t appear…
Letter from Rome Back in the mid-1980s, rebel Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff was the enfant terrible of Latin America’s liberation theology movement, and he had a couple of celebrated run-ins with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s doctrinal czar under St John Paul II and the future Pope Benedict XVI. At one point, Ratzinger jokingly said…
Some 40 bishops participating in the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon gathered on Sunday in the Catacombs of St Domitilla in Rome to renew a pact signed in 1965 by 42 prelates at the Second Vatican Council calling for a poor Church. Though both ‘Pacts of the Catacombs’ were inspired by a commitment to…
A friend of mine shares this story. She grew up with five siblings and an alcoholic father. The effect of her father’s alcoholism was devastating on her family. Here’s how she tells the story: “By the time my father died his alcoholism had destroyed our family. None of us kids could talk to each other…
Notebook Last Sunday two young men called to see me after Mass. They’re students, sharing accommodation and, apart from their studies, they want to grow in holiness, to become the men God made them to be. They told me they had cleared a space on their bookshelves for books that would help them in this…
Does the provision of free and accessible contraception – to be introduced in Ireland within the next 18 months – halt the rate of abortion? There is a very useful opportunity for some sociology student to address this question, perhaps as a PhD thesis, over the next five years. Many people have believed that contraception…
Coverage of eco and pro-life activism are a case study in media bias, writes David Quinn If you want to know what a favoured movement looks like, and you wish to contrast it with one that is disfavoured, look no further that the environmentalist and pro-life movements. The starkly differing ways in which they are…
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
David Quinn
Chai Brady
John L. Allen Jr.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser