Often the Church is accused of holding up difficult ideals while not acting to help people try to achieve these ideals. The charge is, of course, false – helping others is of the essence of Christianity. Often you’ll hear people who are supporting of the campaign to remove the right to life of unborn children…
Dear Editor, I am sometimes amused by discussions within the Church about the possibility of Catholics with same-sex attraction. Much of the commentary seems entirely unaware that gay Catholics – many of them couples with fellow gay Catholics – are part and parcel of every parish community in the country. In some parishes, they are…
Some years ago, I attended a medical conference in London at which Prof. Joel Brind spoke. He has the chair in biology and endocrinology at New York’s Baruch College, and he is the leading exponent of the thesis that there is a link between breast cancer and induced abortion. Prof. Brind spoke as a scientist…
The View There are a lot of questions about the forthcoming abortion referendum and the country’s response to it. Perhaps the first question is: does everyone know what the Eighth Amendment actually says? An important question, when the people are about to vote about whether it stays or it goes. It’s not just about…
Suffering is the flipside of love writes David Quinn Everyone at some point in their lives has to confront the awesome reality of suffering. It may come in the form of ill health, job loss or the breakup of a marriage. These things are bad when they happen to us personally but are often…
The power of a subordinate clause, one nuance within a sentence and everything takes on a different meaning. That’s the case in a recent brilliant, but provocative, novel, The Ninth Hour, by Alice McDermott. She tells a story which, among other things, focuses on a group of nuns in Brooklyn who work with the poor.…
Fr Bernard Healy Every January, the clergy of my Diocese gather for our annual assembly. We spend three days away together for renewal and ongoing formation. Until recently this was a Priests’ Assembly, but now we have been enriched by the presence of our Permanent Deacons. We take those three days to listen to…
Dear Editor, I cannot be alone in thinking that Cardinal Kevin Farrell and the Vatican are perfectly within their rights to decide who can – and cannot – speak on Vatican territory. The report that the organisers of an event at which former President Mary McAleese is due to speak next month have had to…
There is growing disquiet within the Church about Pope Francis’ handling of allegations of clerical sexual abuse. Shortly after his appointment, Francis won widespread praise for setting up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. It was a bold statement of intent that the Argentine Pontiff was intent on ensuring that the global Church…
What are we to make of Viktor Orban, the Hungarian leader who is almost certain to be swept back to power in the Hungarian spring election? He is regarded as an ‘anti-liberal’ and ‘semi-authoritarian’ by the European Union – and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was widely criticised in Ireland just for paying a visit to Mr…
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Nuala O’Loan
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser