Last week, Pope Francis embarked on his 45th and most ambitious trip of his papacy, both in terms of distance and duration. It was a 12-day, four-country, two-continent odyssey; with stops in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore. The trip, which enabled Catholics in remote regions to see the Pope in the flesh prompted…
Hannah Brockhaus Pope Francis landed in Dili, the capital city of East Timor, on Monday last in the third stop on a September 2–13 trip to four countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania. One of the world’s newest nations — it became a sovereign state in 2002 — the majority-Catholic country is on a journey…
Letter from Rome If ever proof were needed of Pope Francis’s indefatigable commitment to outreach, the fact that today he’s travelled to Vanimo in Papua New Guinea, the most remote corner of a country which already represents the world’s peripheries, to meet with people utterly unaccustomed to having world leaders come calling, surely delivers it.…
Notebook If you pray the Angelus on a Sunday evening while watching RTÉ you will be familiar with the Abbey of Ballindoon. Each Sunday this wonderful structure acts as the backdrop to the ringing of the bells calling us to prayers. Recently I was invited by Fr Cullen and the parish of Geevagh in Co.…
Perhaps this is the kind of conversation that must often take place in private. Recently, a friend reflectively aired this thought, “with so much contraception now available, one must wonder why Irish abortion figures continued to rise.” There were 10,033 abortions in the Irish Republic in 2023, increased from 8,156 in 2022 and 6,577 in…
From time to time, in my capacity as head of The Iona Institute, I commission an opinion poll on some topic or another. When I do so, I am always aware that asking questions in a certain way is more likely to result in a certain outcome. That is why I often base the questions…
Alan Hynes If there is one genre of engagement with education policy in Ireland that is likely to prompt a unity of weary groans from all working within schools, it is politicians or campaigning groups ‘calling on’ schools to address some social ill through education. These generally fall into two broad categories: 1) calling on…
Turning to the past with dread, I forced myself to watch Stolen, a new RTÉ documentary billed as the inside story of the Mother and Baby homes. It was not only the wounded past I dreaded to look at, but a documentary which I (rightly) guessed would approach this tragic subject, with its own provocative…
Part 3 of a new series on Faith in modern Ireland with Eoin McCormack Have you ever found yourself in the often-awkward position in work or in another social setting where you are somehow elected the spokesperson for all things Catholic? This column over the next several weeks is taking a look at how we…
Despite an increase in Islamist attacks and the threat of martyrdom, the Faith is growing in West Africa writes Michael Kelly Most of us would probably struggle to point out Burkina Faso on a map, much less say anything coherent about the political situation in the landlocked west African nation. Pope Francis used the occasion…
John L. Allen Jr.
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Martina Purdy
Michael Kelly