The Pope’s idea of co-responsibility for the Church is the mustard seed that may one day grow into a large tree and give shelter to all, writes Garry O’Sullivan Numbers don’t lie, yet we all know the phrase “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” a phrase that is described as “the persuasive power of statistics to…
A danger in any synodal pathway is that the process can be dominated by a vocal minority, writes Rev. Stephen Neill Like many of my colleagues I have been watching with some interest the evolution of the ‘synodal pathway’ in the Catholic Church in Ireland and indeed worldwide. It was thus disappointing to see reported…
On any other day, the dominant Vatican headline on March 29 would have belonged to German Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner, whose unexpected resignation from the Pope’s chief advisory body on combating sexual abuse left the broader state of Francis’s reform campaign an open question. It wasn’t just the fact that Fr Zollner resigned which raised…
Cindy Wooden The Catholic Church formally “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognise the inherent human rights of indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘doctrine of discovery’,” a Vatican statement said. Issued March 30 by the dicasteries for Culture and Education and for Promoting Integral Human Development, the…
Dear Editor, The Taoiseach’s defence of Catholic schools in the Dáil was a surprising and welcome occurrence [The Irish Catholic – March 23, 2023]. What’s rare is wonderful and when the leader of the Fine Gael, a party that has not exactly been kind to Catholic schools, says something like that, that’s something to note.…
I asked you for your prayers when last I wrote on this page. And you prayed for me. The result was remarkable. Thank you. You may remember the reason for my request — my way of coping with an invitation to preach a Lenten mission in a parish on the southwest side of Chicago. I…
I was staying with a friend in London last weekend – and so, on Sunday morning, I attended Mass at a parish church which wasn’t much known to me. It’s nearly always interesting to visit a church where one is a stranger, and I found the experience rewarding and even congenial. I wouldn’t want to…
The View Thousands of families across the country are frantic with worry as the end of March approaches and the eviction ban is lifted. Losing your home, or knowing that you may have to leave rental accommodation despite having nowhere to go must be a genuinely terrifying feeling. In this climate, with acute rental shortages and…
It seems to be a big stretch to claim that the treatment of Joanne Hayes was the result of the social power of the Church writes David Quinn The so-called ‘Kerry babies’ case has been very much back in the news again thanks of the arrest and subsequent release of two people by gardaí investigating…
Letter from Rome Justin McLellan The people behind chatbots are asking questions of priests and ethicists rather than turning to their artificially intelligent creations. They want to know: What is consciousness? What is the nature of humanity? What is the purpose of life? According to Fr Phillip Larrey, dean of the philosophy department at the…
John L. Allen Jr.
Mary Kenny
David Quinn