Caroline de Sury The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, scheduled for December 8, will be “six months of celebration and praise,” the archbishop of Paris said in a pastoral letter. The iconic cathedral will reopen five years and 10 months after the devastating fire in April 2019. Archbishop Laurent Ulrich gave some details in his…
Fr John Harris OP The old Irish saying warns us that “you’ll never miss your mother ‘til she’s buried beneath the grave”. During Lent the Church drops the Gloria from the Mass but it returns with great gusto at Easter. Last month I wrote about the ‘Silence of God’ and how this can be a…
The Catholic Difference The traditional Lenten practices of intensified prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are spiritual disciplines to be followed along the six-week pilgrimage from Ash Wednesday to the Easter Triduum. As I suggested in Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches, that journey can be lived as a kind of annual catechumenate-for-the-already-baptized, in which we join the…
There’s a theory that if women ruled the world, the world would be a nicer, kinder place – and politics less confrontational. It hasn’t always been borne out by female leaders from history, who, from Catherine the Great to Margaret Thatcher have included warrior queens and steely autocrats. But now, Stormont is carrying out a…
The View On March 8, one of the amendments to our Constitution that you are being asked to vote on seeks to remove the recognition and protection given to the extraordinary role that women and mothers play in society. In fact, a ‘Yes’ vote would remove the word mother from the Constitution entirely. As well…
Despite enormous challenges there are many green shoots, and the process of reform and renewal is already underway, writes Michael Kelly It’s unlikely that mandarins in the Vatican pay a great deal of attention to political news coming out of Belfast, but there was a certain symmetry that Down and Connor’s new bishop was appointed…
The Church is concerned by a rise in eurosceptics, writes David Quinn For decades after World War II, the politics of Europe was characterised by great stability. Elections were almost always won by one of two political power blocs, either a centre-right Christian Democrat-style party, or a centre-left Social Democrat one. This has broken down.…
Emotion v Reason In this scenario a person with a touching personal story, but pushing an agenda, is pitted against a person on the other side who has just rational arguments. The latter person is on a hiding to nothing, coming across as heartless, insensitive and is put in a position where they are unable…
Michelle O’Neill’s election as First Minister in the restored power-sharing administration in Stormont is rightly hailed as an historic moment. We don’t need to rehearse the history of partition or the creation of Northern Ireland to know that those who crafted that state, never wanted or expected it to turn out this way. Ms O’Neill…
Scottish politicians are indulging in paternalistic overreach, writes Ian Dunn John Knox has been in the grave for four centuries, but his spirit still lingers in Scotland. As in Ireland, Scotland’s politicians like the idea of a progressive secular state that has left behind its religious roots – but the readiness with which Scotland’s politicians…
George Weigel
Mary Kenny
Wendy Grace
Michael Kelly
David Quinn
Brendan O’Regan
Ian Dunn