Last month, Catholic Education Partnership (CEP), working with the Irish Bishops’ Conference, launched Living Love Senior, an SPHE/RSE programme for the new Senior Cycle Leaving Certificate curriculum. And, it is a triumph. Those involved deserve huge credit, not only for the programme’s quality, but for producing it within the current deplorable state of education in…
Pope steals the hearts of the French Jacques Hébert was one of the most anti-clerical figures of the French Revolution. Hébert and his faction led the anti-Christianisation campaign that reached its peak in Paris in 1793. The campaign closed churches, persecuted priests who would not swear loyalty to the Revolution and converted some churches…
A leading politician – who once claimed he was indoctrinated at his Catholic grammar school – has been spearheading a highly controversial bill in the north of Ireland. Eoin Tennyson, an Alliance Party MLA at Stormont, wants to ban conversion practices related to sexuality or gender. Some time ago, Mr Tennyson, a gay man, shared…
The now-ubiquitous terms “reproductive health” and “reproductive freedom” have contributed mightily to a slaughter of the innocents in these United States. The death toll from that massacre is now greater than the estimated 60 million civilian lives erased by area bombing, genocide, starvation, and disease during World War II. If the victor of D-Day, Dwight…
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict grew from two national movements – Jewish Zionism and Palestinian Arab nationalism – seeking security and self-determination in the same land. Antisemitism and the Holocaust are essential to understanding Jewish support for a state of their own; Palestinian displacement, statelessness and military occupation are equally important to understanding Palestinian attitudes. Both histories…
For much of Ireland’s history, faith and culture were deeply intertwined. Church buildings stood at the centre of communities, Catholic schools shaped generations, and participation in religious life was often seen as a normal part of Irish identity. Today, however, Ireland finds itself in a very different place. Church attendance has declined, religious practice can…
Pope Leo XIV sat in the Stade de France just outside Paris last Friday night watching the wonderful spectacle of the Saints of France, surrounded by 80,000 young people. The spectacle presented the great figures of the Church in France down through the centuries, the most dramatic moment being the entrance of Joan of Arc…
I recently read Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds. This pointed me to Charles McKay’s 1841 book of the same headline, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Somehow, this led me to Enthusiasm, first published in 1950, by Ronald A. Knox. Three different centuries. Similar issues. We encounter them today. Both Knox and McKay,…
I was very impressed by the editorial ‘The future of the Irish Church’ (IC, September 10). The editor has raised some very important and challenging questions which merit further discussion. The three solutions to the present priest shortage are well analysed. Importing priests from other countries robs their native lands of their ministry and is…
A return to the Church and a thank you to Irish clergy and friends Dear Editor, I converted to Catholicism at 21 years of age and for 39 years the Church was my rock and my shield. I’m indebted to the Church for the education it gave me which enabled me to have a mature…
David Quinn
Martina Purdy
George Weigel