The American ice-cream company Ben and Jerry’s has a beautiful motto: peace, love and ice-cream. But frankly, it has an ugly agenda when it comes to babies in the womb. And no matter how much sugar they pour into their ice-cream, it will never sweeten the bitter taste of abortion. And as we approach the…
Lent kind of crept up on me this year. I had barely adjusted to writing 2025 instead of 2024 and yet it was already Ash Wednesday. I was relieved when my nephew, Jason Conroy, asked if I wanted to be part of a WhatsApp group that would follow along with Cardinal Pell’s prison journals for…
In Leo Tolstoy’s famed novel, Anna Karenina, one of the main characters, Kitty, is heartbroken when the man she thought she was going marry, Count Vronsky, has designs on Anna instead. Kitty becomes listless and melancholic. Kitty’s family bring her to a health spa in Germany to recover, which she finally does by befriending another…
Relentless Ministry – In a new series written by Priests, we will explore what most priests describe as “Relentless Ministry” and the challenges of being a priest in Ireland today “Who looks after the priests?” Asked Sr Briege McKenna speaking to The Irish Catholic. Sr Briege has been committed to the ministry of intercession…
Dear Editor, So many excellent articles to comment on your issue of March 6 but I would like to begin with Maria Steen’s outstanding report on the media’s predictable take on the Trump/Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval Office. I cannot say I am surprised but I was certainly shocked to learn that it lasted 50…
Having celebrated the feast of St Patrick, now is a good time to consider our call to evangelise in our day as St Patrick did successfully in his. Explored here are four basic components of evangelisation: the personal, inter-personal, liturgical and cultural. First, the personal. Karl Barth, the Swiss Protestant theologian from the last century,…
There is a long Christian tradition – rooted in the Gospels – of showing compassion for women who work as prostitutes. Christian women and early feminists took up this cause in the 19th century – the anti-slavery Christian campaigner Josephine Butler sheltered prostitutes, and halted young girls from being trafficked into prostitution, too. Compassion and…
It was on the way to Mass that I first heard the story of St Joseph and Bobby Clarke. My friend’s aunt, Ann Kelly, needed a lift, and the pair of them were catching up, as I listened from the back seat. “As you know,” said Ann, “I fell out with St Joseph for 33…
A view from the Seanad The Trump/Vance vs Zelenskyy dust-up in the White House was widely portrayed as an ambush of a tired and strained war-hero by a cynical and narcissistic duo bent only on self-aggrandisement. But with the wisdom of hindsight, it seems that Zelenskyy played his hand very badly that day. In old-style…
Each time we leave Mass we are told to “go in peace” Our mission is “to love and serve the Lord”. What does this mean for each of us? The recent final document of the Synod last November tells us what it is to be a Catholic “each according to their diverse roles – within…
Martina Purdy
Breda O'Brien
David Quinn
Renata Milán Morales
Mary Kenny
Senator Ronan Mullen
Nuala O’Loan