The Church’s unity comes from the undivided Trinity, writes Cathal Barry
Category: Opinion
God’s love fills in where human love is absent
Eternity has more kinds of rooms than this world does. This is a thought inside the head of Marilynne Robinson’s fictional character, Lila, in Robinson’s recent novel. Lila has reason to think that way, that is, to think outside the box of conventional religious piety because her story is not one that fits piety of…
Measuring the ‘Francis effect’ on vocations
We shouldn’t overburden Pope Francis with unrealistic expectations
Cardinal Dolan’s ‘profoundly ignorant’ take on Irish history
At no point did the IRA ever claim solace from any version of Catholicism.
National media badly needs young readers
A pleasant young man was handing out leaflets last Sunday, outside St Teresa’s Church in Clarendon Street, Dublin, calling on people to ‘Stand Against Media Bias’ at a protest outside Dáil Éireann this week. The slogan is “33 to 1” – because, in the space of a recent fortnight, 33 articles appeared in the national…
Fight against Pope and Vatican reform intensifies
Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas and bureaucracies don’t support reform. The election of Pope Francis almost two years ago with a key mandate for reform of the Church’s central administration marked somewhat of a watershed. Neither St John Paul II nor Benedict XVI were particularly recognised as Popes who had much interest in governing the…
Emotional attachment is just as important as genetics
I was informally fostered by an uncle and aunt when I was seven, and I often feel this has given me a sense of identification with children who are fostered or adopted. Family fostering – an old Irish custom – is not quite the same as being placed with an unknown foster-family. Yet I did…
Elections may bring instability
Martin Mansergh, The View
Nationalist parties are alienating Catholic voters
The DUP is starting to look like an attractive option for some Catholics in the North, writes David Quinn
Without free will God would be a dictator
Dear Editor, Lately it has become customary to discredit the existence of God by claiming that an all merciful, all loving God would never allow suffering in the world. This is an approach taken recently by Stephen Fry and even the great naturalist, David Attenborough, remarked that many people often ask him why he doesn’t attribute…

Cathal Barry
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Courtney McGrail
Dr Martin Mansergh
David Quinn