Suffering is the flipside of love writes David Quinn   Everyone at some point in their lives has to confront the awesome reality of suffering. It may come in the form of ill health, job loss or the breakup of a marriage. These things are bad when they happen to us personally but are often…

The power of a subordinate clause, one nuance within a sentence and everything takes on a different meaning. That’s the case in a recent brilliant, but provocative, novel, The Ninth Hour, by Alice McDermott. She tells a story which, among other things, focuses on a group of nuns in Brooklyn who work with the poor.…

Fr Bernard Healy   Every January, the clergy of my Diocese gather for our annual assembly. We spend three days away together for renewal and ongoing formation. Until recently this was a Priests’ Assembly, but now we have been enriched by the presence of our Permanent Deacons. We take those three days to listen to…

What are we to make of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian leader who is almost certain to be swept back to power in the Hungarian spring election? He is regarded as an ‘anti-liberal’ and ‘semi-authoritarian’ by the European Union – and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was widely criticised in Ireland just for paying a visit to Mr…

The View   There have been exchanges during the week on Twitter and in the mainstream media in which those in favour of legalising abortion have decried those who are against it for trying to make the point that children with disabilities would be particularly vulnerable if the Eighth Amendment is repealed. Down Syndrome Ireland…

We cannot be silent about aborting babies with disabilities, writes David Quinn   The issue of Down syndrome has featured fairly prominently in the abortion debate so far and is likely to feature more prominently in the weeks to come. The reason is simple; huge numbers of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome (DS) are aborted.…

There’s an oddity in the gospels that begs for an explanation: Jesus, it seems, doesn’t want people to know his true identity as the Christ, the Messiah. He keeps warning people not to reveal that he is the Messiah. Why? Some scholars refer to this as “the messianic secret”, suggesting that Jesus did not want…

The Notebook   I am ordained almost 34 years and for over 30 years of that time, I have been doing baptisms all wrong. For that first 30 years, nearly every baptism I did was private. Parents would ring me with the news of a birth and I would make arrangements with them alone. When…

I think, if I were a full-time resident in Ireland these days, I would now be inclined to vote for Fianna Fail. I’m impressed by the way in which party members are emphasising the role of conscience in the debate over repealing the Eighth Amendment. By contrast, it seems deplorable that Fine Gael was so coercive…