Normally speaking, when a Pope hits the road, all other Vatican operations enter a state of suspended animation. Appointments, documents and statements are held up awaiting his return, because nobody’s supposed to distract from the message he’s travelling to deliver. The fact the Vatican made an exception during Pope Francis’s November 19-26 trip to Thailand…
What would Jesus do? For some Christians, that’s the easy answer to every question. In every situation all we need to ask is: what would Jesus do? At a deep level, that’s actually true, Jesus is the ultimate criterion. He is the way, the truth, and the life and anything that contradicts him is not…
Notebook Sometime early in November one of my friends sent me the following bumper-sticker ‘Note to all premature Christmas decorators: Calm down, Mary hasn’t even told Joseph she’s pregnant yet!’ A few days after the bumper sticker arrived I read an essay entitled ‘Advent RIP’. Basically the writer articulates what we all know to…
The View Many of the most uplifting international political events since the end of World War II took place in the ten-year period between the late 1980s and the late 1990s, reversing some of the effects of human catastrophes of the first half of the 20th Century. Foremost among them was the fall of the…
When I spoke at the Ennis Book Club Festival earlier this year – an enjoyable and rewarding event – discussion turned to the changes seen in Ireland over the past fifty years or so. An older woman – a retired schoolteacher much esteemed in the community – stood up to say: “I do think we…
Advanced gene-editing would lead to life being seen as just one more product rather than a gift, writes David Quinn Some 20 years ago, Cardinal Desmond Connell, the late archbishop of Dublin, landed himself in very hot water when he gave an address to mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of the papal encyclical, Humanae…
Msgr Paddy Delargy On being appointed a Chaplain to His Holiness, Msgr Paddy Delargy wonders whether the clerical honour actually acknowledges human limitations Is there really a significant choice in everyone’s life that sums up all that has gone before and influences radically the future course of events? If so, in my life it…
Lorraine Clifford-Lee survived because she is a liberal woman in a party that is very short of liberal women, writes John McGuirk There are very few politicians in the Oireachtas with a more conventionally liberal voting record than Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee. If you can think of a hot button issue over the past six or…
Francis talks peace, poverty and prayer during historic visit to Thailand and Japan, writes Colm Fitzpatrick This month marked 25 years since a Pope has visited Thailand, with Francis embarking on an Asia tour which saw him venture to the former kingdom of Siam – the same place that St John Paul journeyed to in…
It’s becoming increasing difficult in today’s world to trust anything or anybody, for good reason. There’s little that’s stable, safe to lean on, trustworthy. We live in a world where everything is in flux, is flux, where everywhere we see distrust, abandoned values, debunked creeds, people moving on from where they used to be, contradictory…
John L. Allen Jr.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Colm Fitzpatrick