Fr Conor McDonough OP Among the books on my shelves, one of my favourites is Ernest Klein’s two-volume Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. It doesn’t offer definitions of words, but shows their roots in other languages and periods. So the entry for the word ‘diamond’ traces it back to a Middle English word which…
“We’ve become so used to Catholicism being the dominant culture, it no longer is”, writes Michael Kelly We’ve been talking about crisis in the Church in Ireland for so long it runs the risk of becoming a vicious circle of negativity. Paradoxically, the need to face up to the piercing urgency of Church reform and…
“the male-dominated structure of the Church makes Catholicism seem old-fashioned and behind the times”, writes Mary Kenny In response to the latest census information – showing that just over 78% of people in the Irish Republic now describe themselves as Catholic (down from 84%), there have been calls to involve more women in the Church’s…
There has been a great deal of coverage about the undoubtedly significant fact that the number of people living in Ireland who say they belong to no religion has soared in the five years from Census 2011 to Census 2016. These ‘nones’ as they are called (because they mark the box marked ‘none’ in the…
Religion would be a second-class subject if new proposals take effect, writes Fr Eamonn Conway The latest proposal from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) will make it very difficult for patrons and boards of management of Catholic primary schools to fulfill their legal and statutory obligation to uphold their schools’ ethos. The…
Dear Editor, “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” (John 13: 14-15) Pope Francis has washed the feet of prisoners in Rome, men and women, some of them…
Believers and non-believers alike have been arguing about the Resurrection since the day Jesus rose. What really happened? How was he raised from the dead? Did an actual dead body really come back to life and step out of the grave or was the Resurrection a monumental life-changing event inside the consciousness of Jesus’ followers?…
To understand Good Friday we need to separate what was happening on the surface from at some deeper place Good Friday was bad long before it was good, at least from outward appearances. God was being crucified by all that can go bad in the world: pride, jealousy, distrust, wound, self-interest, sin. It’s no accident…
Dear Editor, I was delighted to read that Minister Frances Fitzgerald will not be lifting the ban on the sale of alcohol on Good Friday (IC 30/03/2017). Every year publicans bring up this issue as if it is some kind of religious persecution to deny them one day’s profit in a country that has a…
Michael Higgins It is a story of two Maries and their personal courage over against intransigent authority that is as much inspiring as it is dispiriting. Marie-Julienne Farrington, now deceased, was a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, its international leader, a university president’s advisor on spiritual matters, a French translator and a social activist. …
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Mags Gargan