Dear Editor, I must say I was grieved to see Peter Costello’s unfavourable review of The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse, which I chose and introduced. Having enjoyed Mr Costello’s amusing biography of James Joyce’s father and knowing that he writes well of poetry himself, I would have liked to have had my book…
Notebook Next year in both parishes I now have responsibility for, we will celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation. That means that eight different 5th and 6th classes in four schools are eligible to celebrate the Sacrament. In recent weeks I have been visiting those classes to begin a conversation around Confirmation. One thing that I…
It seems, according to the celebrity reports that are part of our lives these days, that Mrs Victoria Beckham, familiarly known as ‘Posh’ (from her days with The Spice Girls), is experiencing the strains of being a mother-in-law. Sumptuous wedding Her eldest son Brooklyn married a beautiful young American heiress, Nicola Peltz, and, at the…
The View Growing up can be very hard. Young people in their early teens and even younger have always faced serious questions of identity. Who am I? What am I here for? Who do I want to be? Why am I different from my friends? Why do I not fit in the way others do? Children can feel…
Too many young men who father children do not play a proper role in raising their children, writes David Quinn Here are words uttered some years back in an address to a Church gathering by a major American politician: “We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times…
In 1935, an aspiring painter and member of a prominent Jewish family in Turin by the name of Carlo Levi was sentenced to exile in Italy’s neglected southern region of Basilicata for his anti-fascist sentiments. Basilicata, at the time, was considered more or less Italy’s equivalent of Siberia, which is to say, a prison all…
The unprecedented consultation process reveals that many self-styled liberals are intolerant of those who differ from them, writes Fr Andrew McMahon Former TV3 presenter, Ursula Halligan, returned briefly to our screens this summer, in the surprising circumstances of the national pre-synodal assembly. The past political editor, and prominent campaigner for same-sex marriage, featured in RTÉs…
by Junno Arocho Esteves The Gospel of St John tells the story of Jesus’ encounter with a man who was born blind. Upon seeing him, the disciples asked Jesus if the man’s blindness was due to his sins or that of his parents. “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works…
Recently I received a letter from a friend who shared that she was afraid to accept a certain vocation because it would leave her too much alone. She shared this fear with her spiritual director who simply said, “Charles de Foucauld died alone in the desert!” That answer was enough for her. She went ahead…
Editor’s Comment The long-anticipated results of the census in the North (see page 6) have demonstrated what has been obvious for some time: Catholics now make up a plurality in the region. The news has been greeted in some quarters in the extreme. Some unionist commentators have deemed the results “meaningless” in the context of…
Mary Kenny
Nuala O’Loan
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly