Baptism is the key that unlocked the door to a valid Catholic marriage for Boris Johnson, writes Jason Osborne Social media is a rarely a home to calm, quiet discussion, and the conversation than emerged following the news of Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds’ wedding was no different. Many expressed outrage at the Church’s seemingly…
A strict religious life that is highly regimented does not fit well with modern tastes, writes David Quinn ‘Was Mother Teresa a cult leader?’, ran the headline in The New York Times last week, and with that began yet another attack on the Catholic saint. St Teresa of Kolkata, as she is now known within…
Letter from Rome Whenever there’s a vacancy in the papacy, a few old saws about the process of choosing a Pope shoot back into circulation. “He who enters a conclave a Pope, exits a cardinal,” is a perennial, as is, “Those who talk don’t know, and those who know don’t talk”. (Both are actually half…
Dennis Sadowski After receiving an unprecedented letter from 67 bishops appealing for a delay in a discussion during the bishops’ upcoming spring general assembly on whether to prepare a teaching document on the reception of Communion, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president explained in a memo the procedure followed in bringing the question to…
Often when listening to someone singing live or on television, I close my eyes to try to hear the song so as not to let the singer’s performance get in the way of the song. A song can be lost in its performance; indeed, the performance can take over so that the song is replaced…
News of Boris Johnson’s weekend Catholic wedding has raised more than a few eyebrows. As my colleague Jason Osborne expertly demonstrates on page ten, the British prime minister has not received any special treatment that would not be available to anyone else. Neither is this a loophole, that has been exploited. None of these facts…
Dear Editor, Over the last few decades, the status of the Catholic Church in Ireland has changed enormously. Catholicism lost its relevancy for many teenagers, young adults, and middle-aged people when they stopped believing or thinking about God and no longer saw the need to attend Church services in a growing materialistic environment. Faith no…
Notebook Dear Notebookers! I am not exactly sure who you are. Well, that is not altogether accurate, since I spoke with a priest friend in Raphoe last week with whom I had not been in contact for a while. “The only place I see you”, he told me “is on the back page of The…
Over the past week or so, the BBC’s globally-famous interview with Princess Diana in 1995 has come back to haunt the corporation. Accusations – and evident proof – of underhand and deceptive methods of gaining access to Diana have emerged. Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, has shown that the interviewer, Martin Bashir, used forged documents to…
The View Niamh Uí Bhriain Just three months into the supposedly progressive and compassionate abortion regime established by Simon Harris after the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, the unthinkable happened. A preborn baby boy was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 in the National Maternity Hospital. His parents said that they were not afraid to care for…
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny