It is none of my business whether Catholic friends and neighbours attend weekly Mass or not. After all, I spent formative years in France where I was told by a Catholic father of seven children that he only attended Mass occasionally, saying: “Je suis Catholique, mais je ne suis pas fanatique!” This French paterfamilias evidently…
The View As I sit to write, the news of John Hume’s death has just broken. There is one word that comes to mind when I think of John: courage. With Pat, his wonderful wife, at his side, ever encouraging, ever supporting, he marched through dangerous, hostile, challenging, territory to bring us peace here in…
We now find ourselves in a situation where the Faith that is still practiced by a huge number of Irish people finds itself under constant criticism while everything new is celebrated, writes David Quinn It is almost two years since the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland. The contrast with the visit of St Pope…
Jason Osborne Scotland’s proposed legislation makes it a crime to stir up hatred against any of the protected groups, which include race, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and transgender identity. A societal dichotomy is rearing its head once again as a result, between those who argue that criminalising ‘hate crime’ is necessary to secure the…
Letter from Rome More than a decade ago, I coined the phrase ‘Marian cool’ to characterise Pope Benedict XVI’s attitude toward Mary. While the German pontiff developed a stronger attachment to Mary later in life than he had as a young theologian, when he feared Marian devotion was a distraction from the centrality of Christ,…
Recently in a radio interview, I was asked this question: “If you were on your deathbed, what would you want to leave behind as your parting words?” The question momentarily took me aback. What would I want to leave behind as my last words? Not having time for much reflection, I settled on this. I…
Notebook One of the nicer aspects of life in lockdown – for me at least – was having a bit more time to read. I got around to reading some long-shelved books about St Dominic, for example, and I fell in love all over again with the founder of our Order. What struck me most…
Dear Editor, Further to your articles on the nascent Citizens’ Assembly on education [IC 09/07/2020], it is necessary to cast a cold eye on the spectre of a universal secular educational model. The argument for such a model is founded on the shifting sands of the secular viewpoint being the ‘neutral’ one. As the philosopher Gadamer…
I had just turned 18 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. I was on retreat for Holy Week at the time and therefore was forbidden to listen to the radio so as not to break the pattern of the retreat. I had the profound sense that something momentous was happening and figured that…
One of the social effects of the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown is that it has, for the moment, somewhat quietened the voices of the euthanasia lobby. We have heard a little less, over the course of this worrying year, about ‘the right to die’. When the death toll internationally is announced and measured daily,…
Mary Kenny
Nuala O’Loan
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly