Fundamental reform of the Irish economy can benefit everyone the Catholic agency insists, writes Michael Kelly The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) has proposed a package of reforms beginning with the forthcoming budget that the agency believes would lay the foundation for a future without poverty in Ireland. Entitled ‘Foundations for an Equal Ireland’ the…

It is doubtful whether a party with the word Christian in the title would even see the light of day in Ireland, writes David Quinn The new leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Germany is a man named Armin Laschet. He will be unfamiliar to the vast majority of Irish people, but he…

Letter from Rome Carol Zimmermann It turns out there really is no place like home for a prized piece of movie memorabilia that came to The Catholic University of America’s drama department about 50 years ago. Missing for decades, the university’s long-rumoured possession of the blue gingham dress worn by Judy Garland as Dorothy in…

Jodi Martin Accompaniment is the key to addressing modern catechetical challenges, a method that’s at the centre of a new entity being created under the direction of Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Catechism. A proposal to create an Institute for the Catechism was…

Several weeks ago after giving a lecture at a religious conference, the first question from the audience was this one: How can you continue to stay in a Church that played such a pivotal part in setting up and maintaining residential schools for the indigenous people of Canada? How can you stay in a Church…

Notebook When I was a student at the Irish College in Rome back in the 1980s one of the features of our lives was the interaction we had with Irish couples who came out to Rome to be married. Sometimes there were four or five couples each week. Many of them travelled to Rome on…

Dr Gavin Ashenden, honorary chaplain to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II from 2008 to 2017, was received into the Catholic Church in December 2019. He recently gave a talk to ‘The Keys’ (the Catholic Writers’ Guild of England and Wales) about his journey. At the Church of England synod of 2008, liberals ‘squeezed out conservatives’ from…

The View Strange things have happened in the Catholic Church during recent years. Once the hierarchy of the Church and her clergy seemed, to so many of us, to be in some way superhuman, immune to normal temptations, strongly united through the graces of ordination in defence of the Church and her people against the powers…

The day might not be far off when protesters invade Irish churches, writes David Quinn Eight Catholic churches in Canada have been burnt by arsonists in the last few weeks and in some cases totally destroyed. Ten churches were vandalised in the province of Alberta on one day alone last week. The attacks are almost…