The View Martin Mansergh November is the month of remembrance, with All Saints’ Day on the 1st, followed by All Souls’ Day on the 2nd, in the Christian calendar. It is also the month when on 11 November 1918 an Armistice was called which brought the main fighting in the First World War to…
Category: Opinion
‘Crisis of identity’ in priesthood reflects a wider social crisis
Living well is a lifelong process, but we have to know what we are aiming at, writes David Quinn In an excellent address to a conference on priestly formation in Maynooth at the weekend, Archbishop Eamon Martin made a passing reference to the volumes of work that have been written in the years after…
Pope leads the way, walking the walk on caring for the marginalised
Dear Editor, It was lovely to see at the weekend Pope Francis hosting a lunch for some of Rome’s vulnerable and needy people. It’s a beautiful witness to the Gospel imperative to reach out to those who society forgets. While the critics of the Church will often point to what they perceive to be the…
God is very close to us… closer than we imagine
There’s a growing body of literature today that chronicles the experience of persons who were clinically dead for a period of time (minutes or hours) and were medically resuscitated and brought back to life. Many of us, for example, are familiar with Dr Eben Alexander’s book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife.…
Universal lessons from the art of war
Notebook July 2009 saw the commissioning of HMS Daring, a Type 45 destroyer and the most technologically advanced ship the Royal Navy had ever deployed. Capable of travelling nearly twice as far and almost half as efficient again as the ship it was replacing, it had stealth technology and a huge radar which could…
Remembering a remarkable man who lived his priesthood to the end
Fr Ronan Drury – who was buried on Monday – shaped several generations of students for the priesthood. He lived at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth for more than a third of that institution’s history. As Professor of Homiletics – the art of preaching – he helped aspirants the length and breadth of Ireland prepare for…
Rediscovering prayer through meditation and stillness
Anthony de Mello is known as a pioneer in his style of prayer teaching, writes Chai Brady Harvesting Hope with Anthony De Mello by John Callanan SJ is available from Columba Press. Contact 016874096 or visit http://www.columba.ie/
Single or married – it’s on the record
If I were interviewing a candidate for private secretary, I would certainly ask her – or him – whether they were married, and if they had a family. It is a perfectly sensible question, and – in the public realm – it is a matter for the record. All census forms, and all books of…
Pope Francis’s velvet revolution and what priests can do about it
Battering the beleaguered bishops is neither going to spur them into effective action nor is it going to hasten reconciliation, writes Dom Mark Patrick Hederman In 2008 I was elected Abbot of Glenstal Abbey. This vote could not be ratified in Rome, however, unless I, who had been a brother monk for almost 50…
Imposing views on unborn lives
The View Marian Finucane interviewed Katie Ascough on her Saturday radio programme last weekend. The discussion focused on Ascough’s recent impeachment as president of the UCD Students’ Union. The central issue in that impeachment was the fact that Ascough withdrew from circulation a booklet for first year students. She did so having been advised by…