A French nun who could potentially be the first woman to cast a vote in the Synod of Bishops said February 10 that her appointment is evidence the “clericalist mindset is changing” as more and more women assume high-level decision-making responsibilities in the Catholic hierarchy. Sister Nathalie Becquart told journalists that Pope Francis has been…

Notebook I had the privilege some years ago of participating in an academic conference in Athens, the city where so many elements of Western civilisation flourished for the first time: democracy, the writing of history, philosophy, and, perhaps most thrillingly, theatre. In Athens, religious festivals were marked by great dramatic competitions, in which tragedies composed…

In the times we are living through, it’s hard to know how to practice Lenten abstinence, since most of us have already forsworn the daily pleasures or self-indulgences which were once the subjects of Lenten penitence. Weight Scolded about the perils of increasing our weight, we’re diligently fasting two, three or four days a week.…

The View It was reported last week that the HSE is to begin vaccinations in religious orders’ congregated settings. The pandemic has taken a terrible toll on nursing homes in general, as pointed out by The Irish Catholic since very early in the first lockdown. However, news about religious orders’ nursing homes and other settings…

Dublin’s new shepherd must continue to acknowledge the negative side of the Church’s recent legacy, while reminding us of the great good the Church has done and still does, writes David Quinn Ireland is one of the most anti-Catholic countries in the Western world. The often authoritarian behaviour of the Church in the past, in…

Many are struggling to process their grief without the rituals of death, writes Ruadhán Jones The funeral is a ubiquitous ritual in Irish society, envisioned in popular culture as a social gathering and a celebration of the deceased’s life. But under the conditions of a pandemic, we have come to recognise its primary importance as…

Letter from Rome In what’s being hailed as a demonstration that Pope Francis is in earnest about empowering women within ecclesiastical structures, last Friday, for the first time ever, the pontiff named a woman as the Promoter of Justice for the Appeals Court of the Vatican City State. In effect, the Promoter of Justice functions…