Sometimes the best option is adoption, writes Mary Kenny

Pope Francis’ recent interview, given over three days to his Jesuit colleagues, has attracted great attention.  He ponders over things, constantly reflecting and modifying his answers even as he delivers them.  He is clearly a very thoughtful man. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, who conducted the interview reported that, “Talking with Pope Francis is a kind of…

The invitation to humility is a clear and constant echo inside of Christian spirituality, writes Fr Rolheiser

Open debate and free discourse are healthy, so maybe it’s good that we are witnessing “rebel priests”, such as Fr Iggy O’Donovan, Fr Gerard Moloney, Fr Tony Flannery and Fr Brian D’Arcy making their opinions known, even when this invites Vatican disapproval.   I am not sure if the correct word really is “silenced”, since…

"Home is where we start from.” T.S. Eliot wrote that and it describes an experience that can be felt both as a freedom and as a heartache. I cite my own case:   I grew up in a second-generation immigrant community on the Canadian prairies. My grandparents’ generation had been the first settlers in that…

Before the papal election Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio hadn’t given a thought to what name he would choose if he was elected Pope. The very idea hadn’t even entered his mind. Even immediately after his election he still hadn’t thought what name to choose. Then a good friend of his, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Archbishop Emeritus of Sao…

Pope Francis’ September 11 meeting with Dominican Fr Gustavo Gutierrez was an informal one, held in the in the Pope’s residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and not listed on his official schedule. Yet the news that Pope Francis had received the 85-year old Peruvian priest, who is widely considered the father of liberation theology, has…

What is the role of the Catholic media? What is the role of the Catholic commentator? These questions are prompted by an address given by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin at a conference in Kilkenny last week.   I suppose the same kind of questions can be answered to a certain extent by asking what is the…

There was a time when it would not have been uncommon to walk into an Irish Catholic home and see two portraits hung above a mantelpiece held in equal esteem: Pope John XXIII and US President John F. Kennedy.   After the austere Pope Pius XII, ‘Good Pope John’ as he quickly became known, was…

Hands up, I never ‘joined’ the Charismatic Renewal. But my life has been impacted and touched by a great many people whose lives have been changed because of Charismatic Renewal. People of a certain age may recall the emergence of the Charismatic Renewal around Ireland.   The influence of the Charismatic Renewal Movement and its…