Dear Editor, 72% of online respondents to the recent The Irish Catholic poll said ‘Yes’ when asked if the church should step back, divest schools and prioritise Faith formation. But will we listen to this awakened majority? All our internalising of hostile media-shaming has led to an unhealthy loss of connection by Catholics with our…
The visit of Pope Francis this August will be a tremendous moment of grace for the Church in Ireland. It’s the first papal visit since the historic trip of St John Paul II in 1979 and only the second time that a Bishop of Rome has set foot on Irish soil. Speaking at the ancient…
The Notebook I was watching the Late Late Show in the company of two of my colleagues when the exit poll results were announced. To be honest we were shell-shocked. I woke up on Saturday morning totally depressed and wondering do I really have a place in this country, this Church, this community any…
When Vincent Browne appeared last Sunday at the end of the Listowel Writers’ Week festival he was greeted like a rock star. The very spacious ballroom of the Listowel Arms Hotel was crammed to bursting point with his fans, and cheers greeted almost his every pronunciamento. Vincent was chairing a meeting called ‘The Absurdity of…
A double standard lies at the heart of reaction to the adoption scandal, writes David Quinn In November 2016, ITV aired a programme called Breaking the Silence: Britain’s Adoption Scandal. It interviewed seven women who became pregnant decades ago while unmarried and were forced by the state, the churches, their families and their GPs…
There are some grains of hope for the Irish Church in a new survey, writes Greg Daly Perhaps one of the great ironies of the huge donations from the New York-based Open Society Foundation (OSF) to help three groups push for a referendum in Ireland on repealing our constitutional protections for the unborn is…
The sacraments cannot be treated as mere rituals that can be approached regardless of one’s beliefs or morality, writes Fr John McKeever Many have described the landslide in the abortion referendum result as ‘a wake-up call for ‘the Church’, presumably meaning ‘the hierarchy’. However, the Church in reality is all the baptised, including those…
The Gospel of John presents us with a very powerful and rather earthy mystical image: as John describes the Last Supper scene he tells us that as they were at table the beloved disciple was reclining with his head against Jesus’ breast. The power of that image has, I believe, been better captured by artists…
The Notebook Fr Vincent Sherlock I remember as a child, having a small plastic wallet with a religious medal inside and a printed card which read: “I am a Catholic, in case of accident, please notify a priest”. I don’t know where I got it but I remember having it. The message was clear.…
We’ve become depressingly familiar with using terms like ‘dark chapter’ to reflect on certain periods of Irish history – particularly the 20th Century. You’d be forgiven for thinking that until the last few years, the story of the Irish State was one solely of darkness and misery. True, the past wasn’t all great – but…
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Greg Daly
Fr Ronald Rolheiser