Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that it’s by the conversion of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in the Eucharist, writes Cathal Barry
Category: Opinion
Muslims too are our brothers and sisters
Courtney McGrailDear Editor, The Paris atrocities have been widely covered on media reports and rightly so since nobody wants to see innocent people being murdered. However, I hope that in future we will see more balanced coverage of the air strikes now taking place against ISIS. In the TV reports covering the French response we were…
Healthily integrating sexuality and spirituality
Fr Ronald RolheiserNo generation in history, I suspect, has ever experienced as much change as we have experienced in the past 60 years. That change is not just in the areas of science, technology, medicine, travel and communications; it is especially in the area of our social infrastructure, of our communal ethos. And perhaps nowhere is this…
Ireland’s military neutrality is a policy, and not an orientation
Dear Editor, Martin Mansergh (The View, IC 03/12/2015) states how “our military neutrality is a policy”. As such, it primarily concerns our interests. Yet our ideals or values arise as well. Bunreacht na hÉireann (Art. 29) mentions the “pacific (ie non-belligerent) settlement of international disputes”. Hence a constitutional endorsement of the “ideal of peace”. Historically,…
The sacrifice of the Church
The whole Church is united with the offering and intercession of Christ, writes Cathal Barry
Recognising the importance of sensitivity
Some years ago, I was challenged by a bishop regarding an article I’d written. We were talking in his office and the tone eventually got a little testy: “How can you write something like that?” he asked. “Because it’s true,” was my blunt reply. He already knew it was true, but now, realising that, he…
Catholic ethos being quietly subverted in education
Dear Editor, For the first time in a long time I feel there is a bit of a positive buzz around the Church in Ireland, thanks to Pope Francis nominating the Year of Mercy. I was very heartened to read in The Irish Catholic (IC 26/11/2015) that most dioceses across the country have embraced the…
The challenge of the Year of Mercy
Showing mercy may not always be easy but we must show mercy as God calls us to do, writes Andrew O’Connell
Mother Teresa has a close link with Ireland
Dear Editor, I was fascinated to read ‘Mother Teresa’s dark night of the soul’ (IC 26/11/15). Of course, there is a close link with Ireland in that Blessed Mother Teresa came to the Loreto convent (now an Irish school) in Grange Road, Rathfarnham, as a novice in the late 1920s. As religious affairs correspondent of…
Same-sex couples can’t be ‘married’
Dear Editor, The Catholic sacrament of matrimony comes to us from the non-Christian Latin word ‘matrimonium’, meaning the state or position of being a mother. The problem is that the word ‘marriage’ also comes from the Latin and, in my view, means much the same. I am not a lawyer and for all I know…