Fr Bernard Healy   One of the beauties of our Faith is that it makes itself at home in every nation and culture. Whilst we all celebrate the same Christmas, we do so differently depending on the traditions and circumstances of our own place. One of my favourite Roman traditions is that of the Zampognari…

Isn’t Mullinalaghta wonderful? This small village in Co Longford  raised a national cheer – and a hooray among the diaspora too – when its GAA football team beat Kilmacud Crokes to win the Leinster Football Club final last weekend. Mullinalaghta has a population of only 447 and the GAA club’s membership there is just 155…

The consciences of medical staff will be abused with a seal of approval from the Oireachtas, writes Dr Noreen O’Carroll   I was very struck by the phrase “the abuse of conscience” used by Pope Francis in his apology for the abuse perpetrated on minors by members of the clergy and hierarchy; he apologised not only…

Human rights need Christian foundations, writes David Quinn   This month marks the 70th anniversary of the passage of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the key human rights document of our time. This document is quoted across the political spectrum to this day. It is used and misused to advance various human…

Letter from Rome   Under any circumstances, the announcement in September that Pope Francis plans to convene a summit on February 21-24 for all the presidents of bishops’ conferences around the world, along with the Vatican’s senior leadership, to discuss the clerical sexual abuse scandals in the Church would have been big news. After the…

Inés San Martín   In October, the government of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo imposed a sweeping ban on civil protest in Nicaragua, which critics saw as an effort to snuff out a spontaneous protest movement that almost brought them down earlier this year. As is almost always the case here in this…

God, it seems, favours the powerless, the unnoticed, children, babies, outsiders and refugees with no resources or place to go. That’s why Jesus was born outside the city, in a stable, unnoticed, outside all fanfare, away from all major media and away from all the persons and events that were deemed important at the time,…

I used to think we got Christmas all wrong in Ireland. Now I am beginning to think we get it very right (from the perspective of my rural parish, at least). I must be mellowing. Mind you, Christmas does seem to start earlier and earlier. A friend in the trade assures me that the reason…

It’s our job to shine the light that first shone in Bethlehem, writes Ciara Ferry   During the Advent and Christmas season, many people find themselves asking the question “What do I want?” Oftentimes the answer can be found in the Black Friday sales, but does not actually satisfy any longer than it takes for…

It’s now 175 years since Charles Dickens published his phenomenally successful A Christmas Carol, in 1843 – so successful that it has almost come to define modern Christmas. It has spawned endless editions and many and diverse movie versions, and its allusions have gone into the language: we all know what a ‘Scrooge’ is, and…