The appalling behaviour of some of the American police which we’ve seen in recent times is, it seems, partly because of their very powerful trade unions. Derek Chauvin, the police officer who stands accused of the killing of George Floyd, had already faced at least 17 complaints of misconduct. Yet his career flourished because the…
The View The country’s most important and imposing statue, that of Daniel O’Connell, on the capital’s main thoroughfare, should be safe from attack (except by seagulls and pigeons), as he championed the anti-slavery cause. In 1845, he greeted the famous campaigner and at that point escaped slave Frederick Douglass, who was on a lecture tour…
If we are not willing to be troublemakers, it is no wonder that the secular culture takes no notice of us, writes David Quinn Are we still a Church of risk-takers? I’m not so sure. I think we have become increasingly risk-averse, taking the safe, soft option when choices must be made. We have become…
While public appetite for dismantling parental choice in education is low, those who value faith schools must prepare, writes Michael Kelly At the national education conference hosted by The Irish Catholic last October Bishop Tom Deenihan effectively warned that if the Church could not move more quickly on the issue of divesting some more schools…
By working collaboratively on a shared goal, religious and laypeople have better been able to help respond to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees, writes Rory O’Neill The idea of love of God and love of neighbour is a basic element in hearing the call to join a religious or missionary congregation. This idea…
The movie Million Dollar Baby tells the story of a young woman who becomes a professional boxer. Young, strong and physically very attractive she captures your heart as, against all odds, she eventually rises to the top in her sport. But then the story turns tragic; she is unfairly hit by an opponent and ends…
The Belfast-born writer and theologian C.S. Lewis once opined on the saints who live amongst us. “Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth,” he wrote. “Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognisable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices…
Dear Editor, On March 22, we learned of the very sad death of the first Covid-19 victim in our country; a lady in the east of Ireland, who was vulnerable due to an underlying medical condition, we were told. Since then, we have followed the statistics; the rise and fall in death rates, the genders…
Notebook Monsignor Jim Cassin died on Friday, June 5, 2020. He was a priest of the Diocese of Ossory. Dear Jim, I write this letter to you just ten days after you have gone to The Father’s House where no doubt you have received a warm welcome from the Father himself but also a wonderful…
There used to be an equestrian statue of William of Orange on Dublin’s College Green. It was ‘alternately daubed, mutilated and garlanded with orange lilies’, according to Christine Casey’s brilliant architectural study of Dublin. It survived several explosions, but finally succumbed to dynamite in 1929. King Billy’s effigy, like that of the Bristol slave-trader Edward…
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Michael Kelly
Fr Ronald Rolheiser