Inés San Martín On February 11, Pope Francis sent an envoy to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, not to rule on the credibility of the alleged Marian apparitions taking place at the site since 1981, but to assist with pastoral issues. Speaking to Crux, a source close to the matter said that Archbishop Henryk Hoser of Warsaw-Prague, Poland,…
“No-one wants them.” Across the plethora of reporting of the plight of Myanmar’s tortured Rohingya community, no single phrase summed up the plight of a people so precisely as that employed by Pope Francis on February 8. During his weekly General Audience, the Pontiff chose to make the despised Muslim minority community the subject of…
In the Hebrew Scriptures, that part of the Bible we call the Old Testament, we find a strong religious challenge to always welcome the stranger, the foreigner. This was emphasised for two reasons: first, because the Jewish people themselves had once been foreigners and immigrants. Their Scriptures kept reminding them not to forget that. Second,…
David Quinn offers an analysis of the Irish Church for the new papal nuncio First of all, welcome to Ireland. You arrive at a crucial point in the history of the Catholic Church in this country. Everyone wishes you well in your new job although there will be many different opinions as to what…
Every Republican president since and including Richard Nixon, with the possible exception of the first President Bush, has caused huge controversy. Even before Watergate, Nixon was a controversial figure, in no small part because the US was embroiled in the Vietnam War, an entanglement begun under President Kennedy. Reagan was controversial because of his hardline…
One of the dangers inherent in trying to live out a life of Christian fidelity is that we are prone to become embittered moralisers, older brothers of the prodigal son, angry and jealous at God’s over-generous mercy, bitter because persons who wander and stray can so easily access the heavenly banquet table. But this isn’t…
France is facing arguably its most unpredictable election in decades. The hugely-unpopular Socialist President François Hollande has declined to run for a second term after his approval rating with the electorate slumped to just 4%. France, it seems, is eager for change. And in the turbulent world that gave us Britain’s exit from the European…
There is “pressure from those who no longer go to Mass regularly but want the consolation of the Church when it comes to a death”, writes Michael Kelly Few things attract more controversy in a parish that a decision to cancel a Sunday Mass or reconfigure the weekend liturgical timetable. There’s often an undercurrent from…
Dear Editor, I found your ‘Webwatch’ section on January 26 challenging, to say the least. That a Catholic blogger like Simcha Fisher could so wholeheartedly embrace the ‘women’s march’, an event with an openly pro-choice agenda, left me appalled. Did the outspoken Mrs Fisher shun the March for Life a few days later? What of…
Mary Kenny writes that “we are in much darker, much more distressing territory” as the conflict surrounding abortion continues Those organising the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution – which recognises the unborn as a human life – are hoping to follow the example, and the success, of the same-sex marriage referendum.…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
David Quinn
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny