Recently we had five evenings in the parish, that gave us space and time to reflect a little on The Rosary. The idea came from a number of Parish Pastoral Council meetings where we looked for ways to engage with the parish on a shared journey of faith. The discussion led us to exploring the…

Some years ago, I was attending a Sunday Mass in Co. Galway, when I came to realise that it was also the occasion for First Holy Communions. Well, that’s a lovely ceremony to behold, and adds extra grace to a summer morning. Didn’t Napoleon say that everyone remembers their First Communion for the rest of…

What do you do when a convent dies? It is a question for our times, sadly, with the death of vocations and, frankly, a lack of appreciation for religious sisters, past and present. I was intrigued when Co. Down businessman Ciaran Fitzpatrick contacted me about the old Mercy Convent in Downpatrick, which had been officially…

An editorial in this newspaper, last week, reflected on the issue of engagement with the Synodal Pathway. Ultimately it posed the fairly fundamental question of ‘who exactly is this process for?’ It raised, in its analysis, the apparent “disengagement” of Irish priests. It implied an absence from the process on the part of The Irish…

Dr Margaret Connolly’s remarks following her detention by Israeli forces after participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla were widely reported. It is not difficult to understand how anger and fear may have shaped her language. She endured what was undoubtedly an extremely distressing experience. But while this may explain the tone of her rhetoric it…

I began writing this on Friday, May 15 – Nakba a Day, the day where we remember the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the early creation of the State of Israel. In 1948, more than 750,000 Palestinians (some 75-85% of the population) were forced from their homes. Towns and villages were depopulated or…

Magnifica Humanitas poses the question: What does it mean to be a flourishing human being in a time of AI? This letter is not a neutral consideration of that question, any more than the technologies of today embody neutral worldviews. This encyclical brings the vision of the Gospel to bear on the cultures of AI.…

Simon Lewis wrote a challenging article in The Irish Times recently about First Holy Communion. He was chatting over a few drinks to a psychologist, who was preparing for the sacrament by spending weeks doing up the house and garden and securing a bouncy castle, no easy feat. The worst part, she told him, was…

Pope Leo’s first encyclical was published last week. It is called Magnifica Humanitas, and the best English translation of that is probably ‘The Grandeur of Humanity’. The main topic of the encyclical is Artificial Intelligence (AI), although the lengthy document deals with a lot of other subjects as well, including, briefly, just war theory (is…