Clarity and honesty are urgently needed around Ireland’s low vocation numbers, writes Greg Daly     “Fifteen seminarians have begun their formation and academic programme for 2019 – 2020,” began the press release last week from the Catholic Communications Office (CCO) in Maynooth. “The new students are currently in formation in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth and…

The Pope has to be careful to give equal attention to the legitimate political concerns of all Catholics, writes David Quinn   It is now over a year since Pope Francis visited Ireland. There has been remarkably little interest in that fact and almost no commentary about it. That’s not a good sign. On the…

The fact that we now live in a society highly ideologised by social media and rogue journalism makes inevitable that we must ask of each encounter “is this person friend or foe?”, writes John Waters   When you stand up to be counted on what have become the era’s most ideologically-mobilised questions, you find yourself encountering…

Government-funded lobby groups crowd out the ordinary citizen from the decision-making process writes John McGuirk   The cost of the National Children’s Hospital – coming in at a touch over €3billion – has been a source of some frustration to voters over the last year. The cost of the national broadband plan, another €3billion, has…

You think about strange things when you wake up with a bout of insomnia at 3am. One of those small-hours anxiety I’ve had is that my driving licence expires in eight months’ time. And I’m worrying whether it will be renewed. Will I pass the tests for older drivers, of alertness and awareness, and will…

Letter from Rome   When roughly 300 Catholic leaders gather in Rome from October 6-27 to talk about the Amazon, it will be the 29th time since 1965 a Pope has convoked a Synod of Bishops. For most of that span, the body’s role could have been described in the same ironic terms Bob Dole once…

Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, has urged those considering allowing priests in the Latin rite to marry in order to help solve a crippling shortage, to proceed with caution, saying marriage has not curbed shortages in his own rite. With five blooming seminaries in Ukraine alone, “thanks be to…

Notebook Some months ago, I heard a request on our local radio station for a song by Max Boyce [pictured above]. The song played was familiar to me but not so the performer. I had never heard of him before and, no doubt, that says more about me than him. In any case, I liked…