There are some evenings when a conversation stays with you long after you have left the room. Last night, in my favourite Donegal pub, I witnessed something that reminded me of the extraordinary power of a story well told. My two teenage daughters were sitting listening to Marie, a 76-year-old Belfast woman whose capacity for…
Even the simplest garden can remind us of a profound truth: the Earth is not ours to own; it is a shared responsibility entrusted to us to protect and preserve for generations yet to come. Our planet faces an unprecedented environmental crisis – climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, water pollution, and a culture…
On Saturday week, October 17, the National Synodal Assembly will take place in Gormanstown, Co. Meath. It will be an important moment in the history of the Irish Church and will be the culmination of five years of prayer, listening and discernment. All of the delegates and participants deserve our prayers and support as we…
There will be, no doubt, many sequelae to the Garvaghy Road events last weekend. Perhaps some will be good – a renewed desire for peace, and a resolve to make the shaky Stormont arrangements work. Perhaps some will be unintended – affecting the reputation of politicians in Dublin as well as in the North. There…
When Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo’s wide-ranging encyclical on human dignity, was launched, Anthropic was represented by a co-founder, Christopher Olah. Personally, I thought it was a mistake to have any AI industry representatives there at all. I was intrigued, therefore, by a recent New York Times article by Elizabeth Dias. It revealed that Mr Olah…
As a teenager in Leeds, Michelle Moran was waiting for some friends when a Christian street preacher approached her with a question: “Do you ever think of Spiritual things?” The youth – who would grow up to become a globe-trotting Catholic evangelist – quickly backed away. She did not understand the question. Although raised a…
It is now 17 months since our new pope was chosen. As we know, he picked the name ‘Leo’ to indicate he intended to continue the work of Pope Leo XIII, the 19th-century pontiff most famous for issuing the encyclical Rerum Novarum (‘Of New Things’), which was the Church’s response to the new age of…
The recent visit of Pope Leo to Paris, Lourdes and Metz with its images of jubilant, predominantly youthful throngs, cheering and singing, brought back memories of similar scenes from the Ireland of September, 1979 when Pope St John Paul II took Ireland by storm. Today, memories of that visit have a dark lining. It is…
It’s as well I had put down my razor when I switched on Morning Ireland last Friday week for the 7am news headlines. Listening to their opening description of Pope Leo’s visit to France starting that day, I might have cut myself. “The Catholic hierarchy in France is hoping that the visit trip (sic) will…
What is happening at Drumcree and on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown at the moment could lead to cause enormous and incalculable damage to an already struggling Northern Ireland. As the two sides proclaim that the other side is not going to win, the possibility of trouble, of the outbreak of violence which we all…
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
Martina Purdy
David Quinn
Senator Ronan Mullen
Nuala O’Loan