Letter from Rome After Pope Francis sparked a wave of controversy for using an off-colour gay slur, he now appears to be attempting to mend fences, offering reassurances to a homosexual man turned away from seminary and writing the preface to a book by a prominent LGBTQ+ activist priest. On June 4, the Italian version…
Notebook The ‘Big Day’ has come and gone: Confirmation Day in my parish, that is. was one of those pastors fortunate to be assigned a ceremony in the Easter season, so we celebrated the sacrament in Castlehaven and Myross Parish on April 26, the day after my birthday. I feel lucky to have had such…
Does anti-Semitism exist in Ireland and how widespread is it? How do you even define the term? Ever since the brutal war in Gaza began last year, following the Hamas atrocities inside Israel, criticism of Israel in this country and elsewhere has intensified. The criticisms are so strong, that many Jews are saying it is…
The World is Big and I’m so Small’, is the title of a children’s book that I’ve never read. Maybe I should pick it up sometime. I suspect a lot of voters, as they prepare their list for the European and local election candidates, feel a bit daunted by the list of problems facing the…
Around the beginning of this century, I worked on London newspaper alongside a lively and admirable writer, Andrew Pierce. I came to know that Andrew was adopted, and just recently he has published an account of his search for his birth mother, ‘Finding Margaret’. Margaret’s story was not an unusual one. She was a nurse…
The Irish Dominicans are celebrating 800 years in this country. They arrived a mere eight years after the founding of the Order and just three after the death of St Dominic. At the time of writing, the seventh most popular article on The Atlantic website is about wisdom to be gleaned from great Dominicans. (The…
Letter from India John Dayal India’s Narendra Modi seems to have decided that he can win a third five-year term as prime minister only through campaign rhetoric targeting the Muslim religious minority as a threat not just to national security, but to the 80% Hindu majority among the country’s 1.40 billion people. Muslims, in the…
Notebook The Feast of Corpus Christi this weekend reminds us to reflect on and celebrate the extraordinary gift that Jesus left us at The Last Supper. The gift of himself in the form of very ordinary food, bread. One of my fears is that because we have the opportunity to attend Mass and receive Communion…
Tony O’Reilly, who died at the weekend, did a lot for Ireland, quite beyond inventing the “Kerrygold” butter brand, although that is a noteworthy success. It was also about rebranding Ireland itself, as a country where people could thrive. In his unstinting work for the Ireland Funds, he advanced the Peace Process and worked consistently to…
In early May Pope Francis addressed the reality of birth rates decreasing in Italy and urged Italians to have more children. “It is important to work together to promote natality with realism, foresight, and courage” Pope Francis said, introducing the topic of tumbling birth-rates in Europe to his audience. “Birth rates” he said, “are the…
David Quinn
Senator Ronan Mullen
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
Renata Milán Morales