Editor’s Comment Sr Josephine Enenmo OLA is a missionary sister from Nigeria now living in Dublin. She has shared fascinating reflections on her experiences of the Church in Ireland and the profound feeling of parishioners still remaining strangers to one another, rather than as part of the same community journeying together. “Coming from Nigeria –…
November humbles me as I witness the outpouring of love and remembrance of parishioners for their dead. During the month, people gather to share prayers at Mass, pray the rosary in cemeteries and to attend remembrance services. I have come to see the remembrance service or remembrance Mass as one of the most important gatherings…
There’s a new musical group who are expected to sweep to success in 2023 bearing the name of ‘The Mary Wallopers’. They are a trio of guys from Dundalk, and are already being compared, in the folk music tradition, to The Pogues and the Clancy Brothers. And they’re not just about music. They also have…
The polarising effect of social media has heightened anti-Catholic sentiment, writes David Quinn Is anti-Catholicism a thing, and does it exist in Ireland? The answer to both questions is an emphatic yes. Just as it is possible to be anti-communist or anti-EU or anti-American, it is also possible to be anti-Catholic. How do you know…
Christians in parts of Asia and Africa are at risk of genocide, writes Ruadhán Jones The latest report on Christian persecution from Aid to the Church in Need makes for grim reading. Persecution and oppression in 75% of the 24 countries surveyed is on the rise. Christians face threats from Islamist terrorism, from state-authoritarianism and…
The Government betrays an alarming lack of the sophistication needed to oversee hate crime legislation, writes Fr Andrew McMahon “Nobody talks about sin anymore” is a comment still heard in parish life in Ireland – though typically from those of advanced years. One senses that the area of sexuality and relationships is uppermost in the…
Just a week after the Vatican’s first auditor general and his deputy filed a $9.6 million lawsuit for wrongful dismissal, the Vatican’s legal system has seemingly sought to hamstring the claim by refusing to certify the plaintiffs’ chosen lawyer. Speaking to journalists November 17, Libero Milone, the Vatican’s first auditor general, who appointed in 2015…
by Cindy Wooden The German bishops’ meeting with officials of the Roman Curia was not a “showdown,” but it did make clear the Vatican’s strong concerns about Germany’s Synodal Path, especially regarding its support for official ministries for women and for a change in Church teaching about homosexuality, said the president of the bishops’ conference.…
Editor’s Comment Writing to early Christians in Asia Minor nearly 2,000 years ago St Peter urged believers to: “always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have” (I Peter 3:15). The Christians were a minority at the time often facing persecution, and St Peter referred…
Dear Editor, Dr Tom Finegan [The Irish Catholic – November 10, 2022] puts us all in his debt by drawing our attention to a fault line in our thinking as Catholics. Like a geological fault line it is all the more dangerous for being unsuspected. We don’t think it is possible for us to imitate…
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Ruadhán Jones