The votes have been counted and Northern Ireland is in something of a state of shock. Last week unionists had a 16-seat majority over nationalists in the Assembly. Now, just over a week later nationalism has a total of 39 seats to unionism’s 40 seats. However the DUP, by a majority of one, has more…
It’s all over bar the shouting, so the saying goes. As the Citizens’ Assembly moved last weekend from a session of presentations and questioning to a phase of internal debate towards a final ballot on recommendations to be put to the Oireachtas, it is a fairly safe bet that we have not heard the last…
Investigation of mother and baby homes should proceed apace, writes David Quinn It is very hard, three years after the story first broke, to write again about the Tuam mother and baby home and all the deaths that took place there in the years of its operation from 1925 to 1961. What else is left…
Greg Daly considers the Tuam burials in light of contemporary funeral customs If we are to be horrified by what we are learning about the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, we should probably reserve our anger more for how the infant children of unmarried mothers were treated in life than in death. The Mother and…
The voices led by the Catholic Church in the Philippines against the murderous anti-drug tactics of President Rodrigo Duterte gained an important boost last week. On March 2 the international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) released the results of its own ‘sample study’ into the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings being laid at the door…
In a case of ‘better late than never’ President Donald Trump used the occasion of his first major speech to the US Congress to address the wave of anti-Semitism currently afflicting the United States. “Recent threats targeting Jewish community centres and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries…remind us that while we may be a nation divided on…
Dear Editor, Following the revelations last week that “significant quantities” of human remains had been discovered at the site of the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway, one could almost hear the deafening noise of knuckle-cracking that resulted from the universal epidemic of hand-wringing that spread throughout the land. “How could this happen?” some…
All things considered, I believe that I grew up with a relatively healthy concept of God. The God of my youth, the God that I was catechised into, was not unduly punishing, arbitrary, or judgmental. He was omnipresent, so that all of our sins were noticed and noted, but, at the end of the day,…
Fr Conor McDonough OP As Catholics we all surely felt our faith was disrespected last month when the comedian David Chambers (‘Blindboy Boatclub’) described the Eucharist as ‘haunted bread’ on The Late Late Show. The celebration of the Eucharist is the raison d’être of the priesthood, so as a newly-ordained priest I felt particularly keenly…
“The Church will still continue to work and pray for a flourishing of vocations to the priesthood”, writes Michael Kelly “The last person out should switch off the lights.” That’s Donegal-based priest Fr Edward Gallagher’s stark reaction to revelations this week that dozens of rural post offices are set to close. Fr Gallagher, parish priest…
Nuala O’Loan
Paul Keenan
David Quinn
Greg Daly
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly