Category: Comment & Analysis

‘Men’s Sheds for the soul?’

The Notebook Fr Vincent Sherlock   For 21 years I have had the chance to spend a few weeks each year in a parish in the diocese of Rockville Centre, New York – two years in one and the past 19 in another. It seems strange perhaps to combine holidays with working in a parish…

McCarrick – the real choices

Popes Benedict and Francis’ failure to impose sanctions on then-Cardinal McCarrick was understandable, writes Austen Ivereigh   Whatever your view of Archbishop Viganò now — a prophet raised up by God to purify the leadership of the Church, or a vengeful and mendacious official driven by ideology — the question of what Popes did or…

Chastity & love

“Woe to chastity that is not practiced out of love, but woe to love that excludes chastity.” These are the words of Benoit Standaert, a Benedictine monk, and they can, I believe, be profitably read in our culture today where to the detriment of everyone, the sexually active and vowed celibates alike, sexuality and chastity…

WMOF delivered the perfect slogan for the Church

The Notebook Fr Conor McDonough   An awful lot has happened in the Church since the World Meeting of Families just two short weeks ago. When that fact is combined with the muted response to the event itself on the part of many Irish people, there is a danger that believers who participated joyfully in…

Answering the true Christian call

Francis wants a moral revolution, writes David Quinn   The Gospel reading at Mass last Sunday is one of the most famous. In it, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for burdening people with man-made customs. He tells them (Mark 7:8): “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions…