While the Catholic Church in Ireland faces a weekly battering – sometimes through mismanagement and misjudgement by the Church’s own leadership – in Britain, the monarchy is the object of obloquy, sometimes driven by a similar motivation to destroy the institution. They are aware that a Netflix series is going to be produced for profit…
The View A shift in the right direction is taking place on an international level when it comes to transgenderism and children. In Britain, and in states like Florida in the US, experts and policymakers are now putting the protection of children first – and reversing the trend to provide children with so-called ‘gender-affirming care’; a treatment…
Dublin diocese’s financial report shows it’s struggling to make up for Covid-driven income cuts, writes Ruadhán Jones As Ireland’s largest diocese, Dublin’s financial reports always make for important reading in gauging the Church’s financial health. This year’s two reports submitted to the Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA), covering the period up to December 31, 2021, were…
Ireland must play its part in combatting global warming, even though anything we do will make no discernible difference because our population is so tiny, writes David Quinn The autumn has been exceptionally mild so far and we had a warm summer. Parts of Europe had extreme weather events, including droughts. China has experienced a…
Church in Ireland offers partial Gospel for failing faith, writes Dr Tom Finegan Often when Church problems are discussed we hear about declining numbers, shaky finances, and lessening influence. Yet the problems in Irish Catholicism run deeper than any of these. The recent controversy involving Bishop of Kerry Ray Browne’s public rebuke of Fr Sean…
by Eduardo Campos Lima Letter from Brazil After the fiercest presidential campaign in Brazil’s history, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva managed to beat his rival Jair Bolsonaro on October 30 with a narrow margin of only two million votes. As soon as the South American country’s electoral authority proclaimed Lula’s victory, several world…
by Zelda Caldwell Before a gathering of religious leaders in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, a Catholic bishop from Nigeria gave an account of how his country had become a “cauldron of violence” at the hands of Islamist extremists. Addressing the G20 Religion Forum in Bali on November 3 in advance of the…
It is not enough merely to have saints; we need saints for our times! An insightful comment from Simone Weil. The saints of old have much to offer; but we look at their goodness, faith, and selflessness and find it easier to admire them than to imitate them. Their lives and their circumstances seem so…
Editor’s Comment Church history is always one of ups and downs, peaks and troughs. The last 2,000 years have been witness to some of the greatest people in human history doing great things in the name of Christianity. The same period has also witnessed immense human wickedness from people who profess to be followers of…
Dear Editor, As Christians around the world start thinking about setting up nativity scenes for Christmas, the ox and the donkey regular fixtures around the manger are latter-day inventions nowhere to be seen in the gospels. The Vatican itself has included animals in the nativity scenes it sets up each year in St Peter’s Square.…
Mary Kenny
Ruadhán Jones
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly