The Church’s mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament, writes Cathal Barry

Normally none of us like feeling sad, heavy, or depressed. Generally we prefer sunshine to darkness, light-heartedness to melancholy. That’s why, most of the time, we do everything we can to distract ourselves from melancholy, to keep heaviness and sadness at bay. We tend to run from those feelings inside us that sadden or frighten…

I had no idea that St Thérèse of Lisieux had such a massive band of devotees until the visit of her relics in 2001. A headline in this newspaper at the end of the tour’s first week reported that 100,000 people had turned out in the South East.  I was travelling a lot that summer…

The structure of the Church mirrors the world

Is it only a matter of time before the media honeymoon which Pope Francis has enjoyed is over? Certainly, some of the media coverage of his recent trip to the Philippines might suggest that yes, the media has rediscovered that the Pope is a Catholic. Pope Francis has an informal style of speaking that makes…

Papal nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Charles Brown, delivered the 2015 Terrence R. Keeley Vatican Lecture at the University of Notre Dame in the US recently. These are some abridged highlights of his speech.

It is abhorrent that we have contrived to make parts of Europe unsafe for Jews once again, writes David Quinn

John the Baptist was more than a prophet, while Mary was more than a mother, writes Cathal Barry

Christian de Cherge, the Trappist Abbott who was martyred in Algeria in 1996, was fond of sharing this story. He had a very close Muslim friend, Mohammed and the two of them used to pray together, even as they remained aware of their differences, as Muslim and Christian. Aware, too, that certain schools of thought,…

Celebrating Week of Prayer for Christian Unity