Inés San Martín When she first heard that Pope Francis wanted her to write the meditations for the world’s most followed Way of the Cross ceremony, Italian Sr Eugenia Bonetti said she was “embarrassed” but soon realised that it could be a “great opportunity”. An opportunity “not for me, but for the many people who through…
When the Romans designed crucifixion as their means of capital punishment, they had more in mind than simply putting someone to death. They wanted to accomplish something else too, namely, to make this death a spectacle to serve as the ultimate deterrent so that anyone seeing it would think twice about committing the offense for…
Shortly after his election to the papacy six years ago last month, Irish newspapers predicted with rare confidence that Pope Francis was set to appoint two Irishwomen to the College of Cardinals. The would-be Princesses of the Church were said to be former president Mary McAleese and Trinity College-based theologian Linda Hogan. At the time,…
The Notebook Fr Conor McDonough There’s a strange paradox at the heart of modern celebrity culture. On the one hand, thanks to Instagram, celebrities are the object of unprecedented interest, love, envy and devotion. Pop stars and influencers all have their ‘fandoms’, hordes of utterly devoted fans who spend large parts of their free…
Dear Editor, Dr Phyllis Zagano’s article on the female diaconate (IC 4/4/2019) invites some very serious questions, not just about the prospect of ordaining women as deacons but about the purpose of male deacons. If we are honest about this, it seems indisputable that there were indeed women deacons in the early Church, with confusion…
I have a cousin, whose judgement I respect, who regards Dr Michael Mosley as an infallible ‘health guru’. Dr Mosley has made television programmes for the BBC on diet and health, and is well known for his successful ‘fast diet’. The ‘fast diet’ recommends eating very little on two days a week – fasting – which…
The View Martin Mansergh Standing outside the church after a funeral last week, a woman volunteered that one of her antecedents had been an RIC District Inspector in North Kerry, who was shot dead by the IRA in 1921. Having just finished reading Fergal Keane’s Wounds: A Memoir of War & Love about the…
If you think you owe your parents nothing, prepare to learn they were right all along, writes David Quinn Recently I came across the following tweet from a Jewish academic in Israel by the name of Yoram Hazony: “Honour your father and mother or learn about life the hard way.” I’ve never read a…
After all, next to being pro-life, being nationalist-minded is probably the next biggest mortal sin in Irish politics, writes Pól Ó Muirí If I mention the name, Peadar Tóibín, I am sure that the words ‘pro-life’ pop into your head. If Mr Tóibín has one Unique Selling Point at the moment: it is that…
If the Church restores the female diaconate it will be up to individual bishops to decide, writes Phyllis Zagano Nearly three years ago, Pope Francis accepted the request of the International Union of Superiors General, the membership organisation of some 1,800 heads of women’s religious orders and institutes, to establish a commission to study…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
David Quinn