The View Politics, so I’m frequently told, is a rough game, where players have to contend with machiavellian schemes, dirty tricks and all sorts of back-stabbing and unexpected heaves. The usual addendum to that descriptor is “and that’s only within your own party”. It’s long been held, therefore, that increasing the visibility and participation of women in…
Many strategic and political experts have described the tragic situation in Ukraine as a watershed in international affairs, and a quantum leap into a new world order. Alignments are changing, neutral countries – even Switzerland – are taking sides, and the European Union has moved swiftly to supply arms to defend Ukraine. In recent decades,…
Having a child should not be reduced to a transaction like buying something in a shop, writes David Quinn “I’m a 37-year-old single woman and I desperately want to become a mother”, says the letter-writer to the agony aunt at the Irish Independent. She explains that she has more or less given up on finding…
The Vatican has hosted many massive and moving canonisation ceremonies over the centuries, but a rite held in 1622 continues to be commemorated by devotees and studied by scholars. At a ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica on March 12, 1622, Pope Gregory XV formally recognised the holiness of Sts Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola,…
Wars always have wildly unforeseen consequences, eviscerating a status quo and violently shaping new realities. While most pundits are pondering the geopolitical, diplomatic and military fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s war also seems destined to have important consequences on the religious scene. Right now what those consequences may be seems impossible to descry,…
For 15 years, I taught a course entitled The Theology of God. The students in that course were predominately seminarians preparing for ministry, along with a number of lay students who were preparing to serve as ministers in various capacities in their churches. I would always teach what the curriculum called for: the key biblical…
Notebook This summer will mark my 10th anniversary as the priest in Newcestown. This longevity in the parish is a gift. Now, when I celebrate a funeral Mass, more likely than not I will know the person whose funeral I am celebrating. It’s not that I eulogise the dead, but it helps to have known…
Editor’s Comment There are few things that test faith as much as suffering and the presence of evil in the world. The Christian tradition has always recognised the reality of evil as a profound temptation against the Gospel message. The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by Faith.…
Dear Editor, It was good to read Michael Kelly’s article [The Irish Catholic – February 17, 2022] on the Women’s Council of Ireland and his pointing out that it is a long time since the Women’s Council – which claims a fortune of taxpayer’s money to lobby on behalf of women – has even pretended…
I thought that the “handshake of peace”, which we used to exchange in pre-Covid times, was a lovely gesture during Mass. It was friendly, linking people together, and an expression of community. It was also egalitarian. You shook hands with whoever happened to be next to you in the pew, and, in busy city churches,…
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly