Dear Editor, Your vocations supplement this week (IC 9/5/2019) was really quite fascinating and the sort of thing that young men and women discerning clerical or religious vocations would surely find both interesting and useful. I’ve no doubt that the many religious orders that have advertised in your paper were delighted with this kind of…
The Notebook Fr Conor McDonough In the late afternoon of Holy Saturday last I found myself huffing and puffing down a windy, bumpy road in Glendalough. I had lost the pilgrim group I was meant to be leading, and I wasn’t sure if this path led back to the monastery, where our lift was…
I have been surprised by how quiet the national conversation has been about the coming divorce referendum – if there has been a meaningful national conversation at all. In 1995 (and during the two previous divorce referenda), the newspapers blazed with contesting opinions and the airwaves filled with heated debate. Perhaps louder debate will be engaged…
The View The upcoming referendum proposing the relaxation of the Constitutional divorce provisions is likely to be passed. It should act as a spur for the Catholic Church to reconsider its attitude to marriage on two fronts: whether it will continue to act as a solemniser for civil marriages and whether the current approach…
One minority is consistently ignored in today’s Ireland, writes David Quinn Minorities today often receive preferential status. This is to compensate in many cases for a past in which minorities were often discriminated against or rendered invisible. The compensation takes many forms. One is protection from criticism, hence politically correct policing of the things…
Elise Harris Driving home his defence of migrants and refugees, Pope Francis told Bulgarian Catholics this week that the Church must always be a supportive community whose doors are open to all, especially those who are far away from home. As he often has in the past, the Pope in his May 6 speech…
Hell is never a nasty surprise waiting for a basically happy person. Nor is it necessarily a predicable ending for an unhappy, bitter person. Can a happy, warm-hearted person go to Hell? Can an unhappy, bitter person go to Heaven? That’s all contingent upon how we understand Hell and how we read the human heart.…
The Notebook Fr Bernard Healy The whole Catholic world comes on pilgrimage to Rome, but where do the Romans themselves go on pilgrimage? Many head to Lourdes, Fatima and San Giovanni Rotondo like the rest of us, but the pilgrimage site that has a special place in the hearts of many Romans is Divino…
Dear Editor, For all that Pope Francis often talks of his wish for “a poorer Church”, I don’t know how many of us expected it to entail figures for religious orders as stark as those published in The Irish Catholic this week (IC 2/5/2019). Recurring stories of losses at Veritas along with declining weekly collections…
Ireland’s religious orders are increasingly facing financial challenges, write Greg Daly, Chai Brady and Colm Fitzpatrick The frantic call for funds to restore Notre Dame de Paris after the disastrous fire at the start of Holy Week will have baffled many, as will have done stories some months ago about how Ireland’s Diocese of Waterford…
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser