As a theologian, priest, and preacher, I often get asked: “Why isn’t the Church preaching more fear of God anymore? Why aren’t we preaching more about the dangers of going to hell? Why aren’t we preaching more about God’s anger and hellfire?” It’s not hard to answer that. We aren’t preaching a lot about fear…

I grew up in Co. Armagh – one of nine children: eight boys and a girl, which as anyone can imagine placed serious financial pressure on my parents growing up. This was especially true as I come from a working-class background and grew up on a council estate marked by all challenges you would expect…

Fr Vincent Sherlock I’d not like to be in Dublin these days and especially not after the full time whistle blew on the ‘Third Sunday of September’, dealing yet another blow to Mayo’s dream of glory – a dream that, I’m convinced, will come true. Though a regular enough visitor, I’d not claim to know…

  Be still and know that I am God. Scripture assures us that if we are still we will come to know God, but arriving at stillness is easier said than done. As Blaise Pascal once stated: “All the miseries of the human person come from the fact that no one can sit still for…

Four years ago, I was asked to accompany a group of sixth-year girls to Lourdes as part of the Dublin Diocesan Pilgrimage. A whole world unfolded for me, and every year since, I have discovered different aspects. This year, there were 130 sixth-year volunteers, known as blueshirts, including two new schools – Coláiste Chill Mhantáin…

  I’m sometimes asked by dioceses and religious congregations for advice on vocations strategies. I don’t have anything close to all the answers, but I’m happy to share my experiences of what I have seen work elsewhere in terms of fostering a culture of vocations and how one might go about communicating a life-encompassing commitment…

Has Education Minister, Richard Bruton, yet said something that is friendly and supportive of the role and place of faith schools in Irish society? Much of the time Minister Bruton sounds like a spokesman for Equate, the pressure group that campaigns against the rights of faith schools in the name of ‘equality’. Minister Bruton gives…

    Should sport be politicised? It’s surely a pity when it is. The spat between President Trump and the American National Football League probably has some merit on both sides: the footballers, mostly young black men, are entitled to demonstrate their antipathy towards the President’s alleged race attitudes, by kneeling on one knee, rather…

David Mullins   Charles Dickens famously opened his novel A Tale of Two Cities with the immortal line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” Anyone who was paying close attention to recent proceedings in Leinster House would have observed…

A number of years ago I attended a funeral. The man to whom we were saying goodbye had enjoyed a full and rich life. He’d reached the age of 90 and was respected for having been both successful and honest. But he’d always been a strong man, a natural leader, a man who took charge…