The first time I ever visited the United States it was to the state of Louisiana in the deep south. Unusually for the south of the US, Louisiana has a relatively healthy Catholic population with some 26% of residents identifying as members of the Church. Other states in the ‘Bible Belt’ like South Carolina, Georgia,…

For good or for ill, the symbiosis between nationalism and Catholicism that was once a given all across Ireland is still potent in the North. It’s not surprising given the sectarian nature of the six-county state from its creation almost a century ago that Catholics united in opposition. From the beginning, anti-Catholicism was endemic and…

In a way, every time someone is talking about clerical sexual abuse the Church is losing. Few things convulse people with anger and dismay as much as revelations that those charged with leading people to God betray that trust and instead inflict the most appalling harm. Perhaps, the only thing to come close is when…

I’m in Rome this week attending the unprecedented meeting on the protection of minors within the Church. Primate of All-Ireland Archbishop Eamon – as president of the Irish bishops’ conference – is here sharing the experiences of the Church in Ireland with his brother bishops. Even before the summit got underway this morning (Thursday) people…

As If she didn’t have enough to concern her in her own job, Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan launched a broadside against the Catholic Church this week. Speaking at an event in Dublin, Ms Madigan referred to what she described as “catastrophic moral failures”. Ms Madigan went on to express the view that Catholics need…

“A punch in the stomach followed by a kick in the teeth” – that’s how a priest described his reaction to the death of Fr John Cummins. A priest of the Kildare and Leighlin Diocese, 52-year-old Fr John died in an accident last week. Speaking at the requiem Mass for Fr John, Bishop Denis Nulty recalled…

One of the great sorrows of many Irish parishes is the pain felt by parents and grandparents when family members no longer go to Mass. Whenever I speak at parish events or novenas, I see the acute pain as people tell me about how they did their best to bring their children up in the…

It is not now an infrequent occurrence to meet someone who will observe of contemporary Ireland that “it’s not the country I grew up in”. Some will go further and say “it doesn’t feel like home anymore”. At a basic level, the world and society are always changing. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher born in 544BC…

The idea of ethos can sometimes be a thorny issue. In a world which often prides a utilitarian approach to education over a holistic vision of the human person, ethos can get reduced to 15 or 20 minutes of religious education every now and then. When one speaks of ethos to politicians, they will often…

In just two months’ time, Pope Francis will mark six years on the Throne of St Peter. For many, Cardinal Bergoglio came from nowhere. The Jesuit Archbishop of Buenos Aires was little known amongst Catholics, though he had made a deep and abiding impression on the College of Cardinals. Remember when Benedict XVI announced that…