Notebook   The 10 am weekday Mass in Newcestown on the August Bank Holiday ended at 11.30 am. What’s more, no one bolted for the door during the last hymn. Instead, amazingly, they stood and sang together. And most stayed on afterwards to talk to their neighbours. It was a Bank Holiday after all. No…

Since I dwell, in a sense, in both England and Ireland – now here, now there – I am sometimes held to account in both countries for what the other is doing. Most recently, in Ireland, I have been charged with allegations that the British (or the English) have become nastily anti-Irish, with the rise…

Now there’s a way to quantify your victimhood, writes David Quinn   Have you ever calculated your intersectionality score? Do you even know what intersectionality is? The answer to both questions is almost certainly ‘no’, but actually, if you want to understand political correctness and its demands it pays to be familiar with the concept.…

Cardinal Pell is bound to be found innocent in a Church trial, writes Greg Daly It’s long been a point made by the Church’s more measured defenders that canon law allows the Church to take disciplinary action against its members when the State – for whatever reason – cannot act. Sometimes, as in the case…

Chai Brady discusses Hong Kong’s mass protests and fears of military intervention   Large-scale protests have caused massive disruption in Hong Kong with the unpredictable situation continuing to draw the gaze of international communities. Speculation that an imminent military intervention from Beijing continues to grow. Protestors have used several forms of civil disobedience to highlight…

A workshop on priestly vocation was an eye-opening experience, writes Bishop Phonsie Cullinan   At the Youth 2000 Summer Retreat in Clongowes Wood College this month 39 young people gathered for a lunchtime conversation workshop on vocations to the diocesan priesthood.  The gathering was initiated by the Vocations Council of the Bishops’ Conference which I…

Letter from Rome   Up to this point, the ire of those who believe Cardinal George Pell is innocent of the charges of child sexual abuse brought against him in his home country has been directed largely at the Australian judiciary, most recently at a Victoria appeals court that upheld his conviction on Wednesday in…