“it’s a sense of grittiness that you need to get through life, not just confidence in yourself”, writes Mary Kenny Psychologists these days are constantly called on to help inspire self-esteem and a sense of self-worth in growing children – David Coleman, the clinical psychologist, is in regular demand to advise parents, teachers and guardians…

Stark new figures provide opportunity to plan for the future, Fr Gareth Byrne tells Cathal Barry The number of priests in the Dublin archdiocese is set to plummet by as much as 70% by 2030, new research has found. Other key findings include a predicted 33% decline in Mass attendance by 2030 and a higher…

“It is in the interpretation of individual situations that there is scope for more generosity and more compassion”, writes Nuala O’Loan One of the things which has impressed itself upon me recently is the extent to which the Church in which I grew up has changed so much. That Church was manifestly different from the…

Ireland has to answer to international organisations overwhelmingly secularist and ‘liberal’ in their outlook, writes David Quinn The bishops will have to starting preparing themselves for a possible referendum on schools within the lifetime of the next government. The distinct possibility of such a referendum was flagged at an appearance by Ireland before the UN…

Fr Micheál Mac Gréil SJ Urban areas are being industrialised at the expense of many parishes and communities, writes Fr Micheál Mac Gréil SJ The growing concern of the relative deprivation of many communities in the West of Ireland is timely and I welcome the highlighting of the current crisis in last week’s edition of…

Fr Liam Power Fr Liam Power addresses some criticism of the Church’s pre-marriage course A charge that is sometimes – unfairly – made against Accord, the Catholic marriage care service, is that the pre-marriage preparation course is too ‘horizontal’ and therefore, by implication, not ‘vertical’ enough. As Priest-Director of Accord in the Waterford Centre serving…

Eilis Humphreys Faith schools empower students with an understanding of the spiritual dimension of life, writes Eilis Humphreys We are living in a world that is changing too fast to be easily understood and that poses a challenge to everybody in the coming years not least those involved in our schools. There has been much…

Barry Walsh Striping the right to life from terminally ill children would be a truly shocking development, writes Barry Walsh The use of language matters in any debate, since words have the capacity to cause extreme hurt, particularly when they seek to unfairly marginalise or devalue vulnerable members of society. It is unfortunate then that…

The choice to use force in 1916 must be subjected to severe reappraisal, writes John Bruton The commentator, Greg Daly, concludes an article in last week’s edition of The Irish Catholic, on the 1916 Rebellion in Dublin, with the words: “The Rising may have been immoral and anti-democratic, but to suggest that Ireland would have…

On any list of the biggest religion stories of the 20th Century, the positive revolution in Catholic-Jewish relations that unfolded post-World War II, accelerating after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, would have to finish near the top. Sunday brought a reminder of this, as Pope Francis visited the Great Synagogue of Rome, becoming…