Like many of you reading this, I remember Halloween nights of my childhood with ‘Trick or Treating’, songs, games, apples and monkey-nuts. It all seemed innocent fun. But things have changed. Today, celebrations of Halloween have taken a darker turn that ranges from exaggerated decorations and costumes in schools to clear evidence of the rise…
I was surprised to see a French supermarket – in the Bordeaux region – dedicate a whole section of its space to Hallowe’en costumes and assorted such decorations, from witches’ hats to spooky skeleton costumes. Marking Hallowe’en had never, previously, been a French custom: but it has become one now, thanks to American merchandising tactics.…
I have lovely neighbours of whom I am very fond. However, I am not fond of their Hallowe’en display, which consists of two ugly witch-like figures sitting somewhat incongruously on deck chairs. A motion-activated sensor sets off vicious cackling and screaming while the figures bob up and down as though possessed, including in the middle…
The phrase “Ireland’s dark past” has well and truly entered the national consciousness. We come across it in articles, hear it on the radio, in TV documentaries, in movies and in general conversation. Our “dark past” used to refer mainly to the period from the foundation of the Irish State in 1922 until maybe the…
It was a summer’s day in Mayo, and the heavens were weeping, when I first heard the story of John’s conversion. He had been raised in a family who lived without faith, a family with a father who drank too much. John grew up hating his father, but like him, developed a thirst for that…
I have no strong opinions, either way, about the practice of the traditional Latin Mass. My instinctive feeling is – let people have Mass in whatever form they chose, providing it follows the basic tenets of the faith. So, visiting the lovely old spa town of Vichy in France this month, I took the opportunity…
Wandering down a shopping aisle in Belfast this week, the signs of the times were on display: pumpkins and skulls of Halloween on the right and left, and, straight ahead, the frosted glitter of Christmas baubles, with everything but the crib! Halloween, which marks the eve of All Saints, is upon us, but too often…
With a General Election coming up, various issues will come to the front of the public mind and one of them is bound to be immigration. It has been arguably the main topic of debate in the country for the last year or so and therefore it is fitting that the bishops have produced a…
Responding to criticism that he failed to show up for a discussion on Friday for members of the Synod of Bishops that was to include the question of female deacons, the Vatican’s doctrinal czar insisted Monday that Pope Francis has made it clear that now is not the time to resolve that issue, but that…
What is a Co-PP? The question posed in two separate editions of The Irish Catholic over recent weeks has certainly caught the attention of priests, judging from the feedback I have received from all over Ireland. Many priests, it seems, find themselves appointed as Co-PPs and know little about what that means. One who ministers in a…
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
David Quinn
Martina Purdy