The Church’s overseas prisoners outreach says Government must work harder to get Irish inmates repatriated, writes Michael Kelly Almost six out of ten Irish prisoners in jail overseas said that prayer and spirituality were their top ‘go to’ when it came to dealing with Covid-19 stress. The Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas – the Church’s…
The Church must reach out and be prepared to be more of a community than a building, writes Dr Gladys Ganiel Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell has made headlines with his assertion that “evidence of Christian belief in Ireland today has for all intents and purposes vanished”. Dr Farrell made the comments in an interview…
If we think we can make the world a better place, standing on the side-lines is not an option, writes David Quinn In the science fiction series, Star Trek, there is something called the ‘Prime Directive’. It instructs that no contact should be made with another civilisation until it has reached a certain level of…
Promoting a truth recovery process without fear of prosecution would provide information to the many unanswered questions of victims and their families in the North, writes Fr Aloysius G. Lumala The role of the Church in peace-making and reconciliation is based on the fact that social and political disturbances in society contradict the most fundamental…
While some studies associate religiosity with conspiracy theories, organised religion is a bulwark for reason, writes Ruadhán Jones The continuing prevalence of, even rise in, belief in conspiracy theories causes some incredulity in the intellectual elite and scientific communities. How could it be, that the age of reason has given way to an age of…
Letter from London Jonathan Luxmoore In a gallery of The British Museum, light plays on an array of medieval crosses, reliquaries and manuscripts, as an audiovisual display reenacts one of English history’s most notorious crimes. At the centre, three stained-glass windows, painstakingly transferred from Canterbury Cathedral, convey images from the fabled afterlife of St Thomas…
In a recent issue of Comment magazine, Timothy Keller, theologian and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, wrote an insightful essay entitled, ‘The Fading of Forgiveness’, within which he highlights how, more and more, forgiveness is being seen as a weakness and a naivete. Hence, our culture sees forgiveness more negatively than…
Notebook Getting vaccinated is “an act of love,” Pope Francis said in his latest urgent appeal, after more than a year of insisting Covid-19 vaccines be equitably available worldwide for everyone to get inoculated. Nonetheless, some Catholics have been wondering if they should seek a religious exemption from an immunisation requirement with vaccines tested or…
Dear Editor, – I cannot be alone in finding the shadow boxing between Church and State over the issue of First Holy Communion and Confirmation amusing. The bishops are acting responsibly within their competence and are also acting with due regard for the common good. It is unprecedented for a democratic government to try to…
For centuries, numberless men and women have lived lives of involuntary celibacy: they have never found a partner with whom to settle down. The Irish were, traditionally, cautious about marriage – often because so many farms were small and inheritance was uncertain – so they lost their opportunity to find a spouse. There were many…
Michael Kelly
David Quinn
Ruadhán Jones
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mary Kenny