It is disappointing – if not surprising – that the newly-formed Irish government does not plan to celebrate the 200th centenary of Catholic emancipation in 2029. They have earmarked several other important dates which will occur under their stewardship: 2026 for the 250th Declaration of US Independence; 2027 marking the birth of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and…
We have a new Government, but will a new leaf be turned in Church/State relations? That is to say, will relations between Church and State begin to thaw, and will there be any kind of formal, structured dialogue between Government representatives and Church leaders, not just Catholic ones? The question is very relevant, because no…
Jen Hogan writes a regular feature for The Irish Times, in which people in the public eye are asked the same series of questions. They range from “How agreeable are you?” to the much more serious “What do you expect to happen when you die?” I have been trying to figure out why the majority…
The programme for government 2025 was finally revealed last week. After long negotiations a pact was agreed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and nine Independent TDs. Having examined the programme, I admit to being flabbergasted at its total disregard of the results of last year’s referendum and the ramifications this has for children and their…
In the new Programme for Government, which Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been labouring over with the rural independents, there is a curious omission. No provision is made for any official arrangements to mark the Bicentenary of the Catholic emancipation which falls in the summer of 2029. Given the huge volume of effort and…
The recent statement from the Association of Catholic Priests on how dedicated nuns are portrayed, often negatively, in the media gave me cause to reflect on the topic, and it’s a bit of a patchwork. The most obvious example is the demonisation of nuns because of their role in the Magdalen Laundries and similar institutions.…
When David Lodge died at the beginning of this month, he was hailed, in the obituaries, as the leading English Catholic novelist since Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh. Mr Lodge, who was 89, had indeed written a famously hilarious novel about a young Catholic married couple, in 1965, struggling with the “Safe Period” of fertility…
Mark Patrick Hederman explores the life and legacy of the Jesuit scientist/theologian In a nutshell I would describe him as ‘a mystic in a mouse trap.’ I would rank him with Gerard Manley Hopkins [also a Jesuit] as a poet who has left us with several beautiful thought-provoking images: treatises on the Eucharist, on the…
Last Sunday the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus marked the end of the Christmas period. Jesus moved from his private life – the carpenter son of Mary and Joseph – into his brief public life: the three short years of his ministry. We are told, “while Jesus after his own baptism was at prayer,…
Pope Francis, on January 9 speaking to the members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, raised the issue of fake news. “We see increasingly polarised societies, marked by a general sense of fear and distrust of others and of the future, which is aggravated by the continuous creation and spread of fake news.…
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Breda O'Brien
Maria Steen
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Nuala O’Loan