The bigger job of synod organisers is to engage young people in the first place, writes Chris Altieri For an entire generation of young people – some of them misfits and some cool kids, some convinced Catholics but also plenty of folks on the fence and free-spirited seekers – Pope Francis at the recent World…
My apologies if the tone of my contribution this month is a little depressing, but I hope there might be a more positive ending! In recent weeks I have been very conscious of people being filled with fear. Our TV news bulletins have been filled with images of terrified people caught up in natural disasters.…
Dear Editor, I write to express my heartfelt agreement with the sentiment that Fr Edward J. Flanagan should indeed be put on the path to sainthood [The Irish Catholic – August 3, 2023]. His remarkable life and selfless dedication to the welfare of vulnerable children, regardless of their skin colour, resonate as a beacon of…
The Department of Foreign Affairs proudly tweeted recently how Ireland was celebrating fifty years of having lifted the “marriage bar” for women working in the public service – with the support of the EU and its march towards equality. Yes, I remember that situation well: women, on marriage, had been required to step down from…
Nobody should be forced to pay for a service they do not want. People should certainly not be required to fund obscene salaries and political activism under threat of imprisonment. There is no longer any need to force everyone with a television to pay for RTÉ. Instead, only those who wish to actually watch RTÉ…
At the end of the 2007 movie Charley Wilson’s War, about how covert American support for the mujahadeen in Afghanistan helped bring down the Soviet empire, a quote appears from the real Texas congressman played in the film by Tom Hanks: “All these things happened, and they were glorious and they changed the world.” “Then,…
Judith Sudilovsky The Stella Maris Carmelite monastery has seen destruction and banishment over its centuries’-old history, dating back to the mid-13th Century. The recent attempts by a group of Jewish religious extremists to declare the monastery a Jewish holy site has however, for the first time, led to the monks installing metal fencing around its…
Dear Editor, I was, like most people, horrified at the treatment of the young calves at marts around the country as portrayed on the national news and shown on the Prime Time Investigates programme aired on RTÉ, Monday, July 10. These young calves are going to slaughter (something that is not spoken about, the presenter…
Fr John Harris OP Over the summer many of us will visit Knock. Visiting Knock is unlike visiting any other Marian shrine. For example, during the apparitions of Fatima and Lourdes, nobody saw or heard anything except Bernadette at Lourdes, and the children at Fatima. Whereas the story of Knock is completely different. The…
Everywhere I went last weekend I heard the late Sinéad O’Connor spoken about with admiration, and sympathy for the mental health turmoil she had been through during her lifetime. The praise we saw and heard over the media genuinely reflected, it seems to me, the widespread feelings for the troubled star, who was such a…
Mary Kenny
John L. Allen Jr.