For those who participated in events surrounding the World Meeting of Families or the Papal visit, feelings of joy will continue to warm their hearts. Whether it was in the intensive preparations that took place in the dioceses around the country, the pastoral congress in the RDS or events led by Pope Francis this was…
We’re not great in the Church at telling people our good news stories. It’s a bit odd given that the Church exists for no other purpose than to proclaim the Good News of Christ. Whether it’s out of a sense of humility, or trepidation that past wrongs could come back to haunt us, Irish Catholics…
One of the primary duties of the Pope is to confirm Catholics in their Faith. That is the principle motivation behind all papal travel. Irish Catholics experienced something of this during the momentous visit of Pope Francis at the weekend. Leading up to the Holy Father’s arrival, the media coverage was relentlessly negative. From fears…
Ask practising Catholics to tell you about their Church and their faith, and on the whole, you get glowing reports. There will be complaints, and stories of inadequacies, and reservations about this or that teaching, and no one knows the faults of the Church — collectively, and in this or that place — better than…
Sometimes you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing to celebrate in being Catholic and Irish in modern Ireland. Hostility towards the Church is extremely high and truth be told it was always going to intensify in the run up to the visit of Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families. A poll…
About six months before Benedict XVI was due to visit Britain in 2010, a rather unfortunate memo from the foreign office was obtained by The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The fruit of a brainstorming session amongst officials, the paper was called ‘The ideal visit would see…’ and included suggestions that the Pope’s visit could be marked…
There’s a depressing sense of déjà vu in the Church as allegations continue to multiply that the former Archbishop of Washington DC Theodore McCarrick sexually took advantage of young seminarians. Dr McCarrick – who resigned from the College of Cardinals at the weekend – is also accused of two counts of sexual abuse of children.…
The visit of Pope Francis this August will be a tremendous moment of grace for the Church in Ireland. It’s the first papal visit since the historic trip of St John Paul II in 1979 and only the second time that a Bishop of Rome has set foot on Irish soil. Speaking at the ancient…
We’ve become depressingly familiar with using terms like ‘dark chapter’ to reflect on certain periods of Irish history – particularly the 20th Century. You’d be forgiven for thinking that until the last few years, the story of the Irish State was one solely of darkness and misery. True, the past wasn’t all great – but…
In the Bible, the whole of salvation history is one crisis after another: expulsion from Paradise, the destruction of Babel, the Flood, exiles, and the obliteration of the monarchy. The history of the Israelites in the Old Testament – God’s Chosen People – is a story of being stripped of everything that they believed gave them…
Michael Kelly