If present trends continue, the name “Mary” could soon become almost extinct. We’re told that Ethel, Sheila, Garrett and Herbert are already “extinct” Christian  names because they are no longer recorded in the top 100 names given to babies. Just over 100 ago, according to Ancestry.ie, more than 11,000 girls in Ireland were baptised or…

Fr Conor McDonough One of the consequences of the Brexit negotiations and the possibility of a ‘hard border’ between the North and the Republic  of Ireland is the resurgence of the idea that Ireland and Britain, or, more narrowly, England, are eternally in opposition, with the latter typically dominating. This opposition is a major element…

Recently I attended a symposium where the keynote speaker was a man exactly my age. Since we had both lived through the same cultural and religious changes in our lives, I resonated with much of what he said and with how he felt about things. And in his assessment of both the state of affairs…

Yes, we are all very concerned about climate change, as the UN (and Mary Robinson) directs us. But what is each of us going to do about it? One practical suggestion is that we should stop buying cheap clothes – and then throwing them away, since cheap attire, by definition, isn’t designed to endure. A…

The View   Last Saturday, Brett Kavanaugh took up a lifetime appointment as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Under the US Constitution, the President gets to nominate federal judges, but the nominations are subject to approval by the Senate, in which the President’s Republican party has a narrow majority.…

Christianity offers an antidote to a harmful individualism, writes David Quinn   A meeting of bishops from all around the world is currently taking place in Rome. Its purpose is to look at the relationship between the Church and young people. There is no one way to look at this question because a huge amount depends…

If we’re honest, it will take years before Irish Catholics can look upon this year’s World Meeting of Families and papal visit and say whether or not they were successful. It’s the nature of these kind of things that their true value doesn’t become clear overnight. Few would have thought in 1979, for instance, that…

Priests tell Chai Brady we deny the devil’s existence at our peril   The Pope’s call to pray to Archangel Michael to protect the Church from the devil this month is a sign that the “evil one is strong at work” according to Irish priests. In a communiqué released by the Vatican at the end…

More than 50 years ago, James Hillman [pictured below] wrote a book entitled, Suicide and the Soul. The book was intended for therapists and he knew it wouldn’t receive an easy reception there or elsewhere. There were reasons. He frankly admitted that some of the things he proposed in the book would “go against all…