Every August, when the Rose of Tralee festival comes around, there’s a breakout of demands calling for it to be brought to an end – on grounds that it’s outdated, sexist, judgmental of women and all the rest. I may even have voiced such an opinion myself back in the dim dark past. But in…
As you read this, a courageous bishop is sitting in solitary confinement in a Nicaraguan prison – Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa. We are so flooded with bad news that it can sometimes be hard to care about a country thousands of miles away. The Irish Catholic has played a valuable role in helping us…
Once again, reputation protection was deemed more important than victims and survivors, writes David Quinn This week, nurse Lucy Letby found out that she will spend the rest of her life behind bars. She was found guilty of the murder of seven babies in her care at the Countess of Chester hospital in Britain. She…
Rightfully deplored sins in the Church’s past have driven many into irrationality in the present, writes Jason Osborne Being both a Catholic and a journalist, I cannot help but notice the surging anti-Catholic sentiment sweeping Ireland at the moment. You don’t have to look far to see it, or strain your ears too hard to…
Cindy Wooden Pope Francis continually calls Catholics to go to the “peripheries,” and that is exactly what he will do August 31 when he boards a plane to Mongolia. Bordering both Russia and China, Mongolia is one of the few countries St John Paul II did not manage to visit, although plans were well underway…
Bishops in Pakistan have called for prayer after an angry mob vandalised several Christian homes and churches in the district of Faisalabad August 16 following allegations of blasphemy and desecration of the Koran. In a brief social media post, the Pakistani bishops on their “Catholics in Pakistan” Facebook page said that “on 16th August, an…
Dear Editor, I write in response to the recent article discussing the unjust sentencing of Bishop Rolando Álvarez in Nicaragua [The Irish Catholic – August 10, 2023]. The primate’s call for the release of Bishop Álvarez from prison is not only a matter of humanitarian concern, but also a reflection of the core values that…
It’s official — the significance of Baptism in Irish parish life is the top ‘hot-button’ issue for readers of this page. In all my years of contributing here, nothing else has exercised readers in the way this topic did in the July 23 edition. Reactions have been flooding in (quoted below, with permission). My thesis that…
After the success of Alan Gilsenan’s documentary on the late Noel Browne, I’d like to suggest another person whose life would make a very fine subject for a screen documentary. Someone who deserves to be remembered in the annals of Irish life, although not now well known among younger generations. I’m thinking of Dr Cyril…
It’s always been a bit of a conundrum to me that those who shout loudest about women having a ‘right to choose’ also often seem most adamantly opposed to actually giving women real choices. This is very evident in the debate around abortion pill reversal – a process by which doctors can prescribe progesterone to help a woman…
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
David Quinn