Christianity isn’t a ‘snowflake’ religion, writes David Quinn During the snow of last week, a number of dioceses around the country said churches should close and also advised Catholics that they were released from their obligation to attend Mass on Sunday if they felt it would be unsafe to travel to church. This got…
No community should botch its deaths. Last month a wonderful leader within the faith community in Canada died and it could profit us all to more fully receive his spirit. How do we do that? It can be helpful for us, I believe, to highlight those places where his life, his energy, and his leadership…
The Notebook It’s the million-dollar question: what do priests do all day? It’s a hard question to answer, because firstly priests vary, but also ministry situations differ. To give a definitive answer, you’d have to survey every priest in Ireland and feed the results into some massive computer to get an average for the…
The Church doesn’t exist for itself – it exists to serve the world. It may seem like the most obvious of things to say, but too often we cling to old structures and patterns of behaviours that have long since outlived their usefulness as if they are things that matter in and of themselves. The…
Dear Editor, I feel so sorry for the homeless people that had to endure the freezing weather this week. People are often left cold in their own homes, so imagine what people without homes are feeling? Over the last year, many homeless people have been found dead, lying in the street, because of the harsh…
It is no exaggeration to say that the Irish State is aggressively hostile to the rights of the unborn child. It is a level of hostility rare to find in any other Western country in recent times, including countries that have permitted abortion on widespread grounds for decades. In most countries abortion is introduced either…
Niamh Uí Bhriain On March 10, the rally to Save the Eight Amendment is expected to draw record numbers, but this will only happen if you make the effort to be there. This is our last chance before the referendum in May to show the Irish people, and the Government, that we must retain the Eighth Amendment and keep Ireland’s…
One of the most sensible interventions made in the current impasse of the North’s politics were comments made last week by Baroness Eileen Paisley. Eileen, widow of the late Ian, said that her husband and the late Martin McGuinness would never have got into this current “mess” in the first place. Widows defend the reputations…
Rome, in many ways, is a company town, dominated by two major industries – Italian political life and the national government, symbolised in the city’s Quirinal Palace (to Italians, simply the Quirinale), and the Papacy and the Catholic Church, iconically represented by St Peter’s Basilica. As a result, if you’re a devotee of either industry, meaning…
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
John L. Allen Jr.