Pender Island is part of the island chain that includes Vancouver Island off the city of the same name; Pender is a relatively small island of three thousand souls. These 3,000 doubles in summertime, when people return to their summer homes, made accessible by car ferry. This large population of people of all faiths and…
Dear Daddy and Mammy, Denis and Sadie to everyone else, but always Daddy and Mammy to me. As I write, I am days away from the fortieth anniversary of my ordination. On July 5, 1986, I stood before the Church and answered a call that had been forming in me for years. The older I…
The Irish Church does not do managed decline. It never has. It lets the clock run down, keeps the show on the road for one more season, and then eventually presents the result — a parish has to be merged or a college closed, the community and or staff quietly told the numbers have run…
As we mark the national semiquincentennial on July 4, we might well reflect on Benjamin Franklin’s answer to Elizabeth Willing Powel, when the elderly sage left the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the Philadelphia matron demanded, “Well, Dr Franklin, what have we got, a republic, or a monarchy?” To which Franklin famously responded, “A republic,…
Do you remember the glorious summer of 1976 when we could hardly believe our luck as the sun shone in the sky for day after day? This was back when few of us went abroad on holidays and sunny weather was something that happened in Spain, not here. Well, for that summer, we enjoyed a…
Pope Leo’s style differs from that of his predecessor, Pope Francis, although they are concerned about many of the same issues. Pope Leo has called two extraordinary consistories in his short pontificate. It is well-known that Pope Francis preferred to rely on his kitchen cabinet of nine cardinals, dubbed the C9. Pope Leo has employed…
Whatever about Palestine being free from the river to the sea, the all-Christian town of Taybeh on the Palestinian West Bank is not even free from one end of the town to the other. At one end, Israeli volunteers shield Bedouin tribes from the worst excesses of the settlers, who are annexing the town’s olive…
Jeffrey Donaldson can expect a tough time in prison for his crimes – paedophiles and rapists are lowest in the penitentiary caste system. But there’s one English priest who is willing to reach out to him, to offer redemption and healing. However, the Rev. Jonathan Aitken is no ordinary Anglican pastor. He’s been an MP,…
‘Better to light a candle than curse the darkness’ Dear Editor, Fr Donal Dorr’s encouraging letter of June 18 urging the forthcoming synodal gathering to look outwards as well as inwards prompts the thought: what a wonderful life-enhancing place the Irish Church could be if we were all to fully embrace synodality in the manner…
We cannot forget the ecumenical dimension of our synodal dialogue, says Cardinal Mario Grech For almost five years we have reflected on and worked on synodality. Much has been accomplished, and much has matured in the heart of the Church. Indeed, never before has a synodal process generated such momentum, such gravitas. One need only…
George Weigel
David Quinn
Breda O'Brien
Mary Kenny