The World of Books By the books editor Once again, thanks largely it seems to a very human impatience to be done, once and for all, with the pandemic, lockdown restrictions have returned because so many, especially in Dublin and Kildare, could not wait as calmly as we should for ‘normal life to return’. But…
Hardly a week goes by without some sort of a religious controversy blowing up. And the pattern is often the same – exaggerated headlines, soundbites and one-liners, with pre-reflective rushes to the ramparts. And so it was last week when Pope Francis was reported to have said, in a new documentary, that he supported civil…
House of Cards, a novel by Alice Curtayne (Cluny Classics, £14.50/$17.95) We often hear it said that before the rise of modern feminism, marriage was seen as the summum bonum of a woman’s ambitions. In Alice Curtayne’s compelling novel, first published in 1939, an Irishwoman makes it indignantly clear that this was not the case in…
The Ontological Argument, a critique from a Thomistic perspective by J. Anthony Gaughan (Kingdom Books, €15.00) Donal Murray In this book, Fr Tony Gaughan has undertaken a careful and thorough reflection on what Patrick Masterson, President Emeritus of UCD, describes in his foreword as “one of philosophy’s perennial and still fascinating preoccupations”. Generations of philosophers, theologians…
At this time of the year, with the leaves changing colour and beginning to fall, the lines in the banner above from Sonnet LXXIII are always in my mind, especially with their hint of a Catholic outlook in Shakespeare (a much-discussed topic today, more so than it once was), through its allusion to the systematic…
There’s something iconic about the Confession box that draws attention, an intensity about the confessing and forgiveness of sins that makes one wonder why more people don’t have recourse to it. The Confessors (RTÉ last week, BBC One on Monday, BBC Two on Tuesday) was an absorbing and insightful programme, uneven at times but with…
The recent closure of Cineworld provided proof, not that it was needed, that the film industry is on its knees today. But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. Online companies have made a killing, as I said a fortnight ago in this page, due to the large numbers of people watching films from…
Retreat from Revolution: the Dáil Courts 1920 to 1924 by Mary Kotsonouris (Irish Academic Press, €18.95) This book shows that Ireland did really undergo a revolution between 1919 and 1923. The old legal order was progressively undermined, delegitimised, and eventually overthrown. But it was not fully and formally replaced until the enactment of the Courts of…
Fearfully & Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image by Dr Paul Brand & Philip Yancey (Hodder Books, £9.99; Kindle edition, £9.99) These days, with the daily news dominated by medical fears of all kinds and our inability to cope, many people all too conscious of the frailties of the human body and the effects that…
Conjugal Love: A Path to God edited by The Friends of Father Caffarel (€14.00; available from Married Spirituality, 66 Mount Albany, Blackrock, Co Dublin A94 AC81 at www.marriedspirituality.com ) Any discussion on this book must begin with Fr Henri Caffarel. He was born in Lyon, France, on July 30, 1903. From his earliest years he exhibited…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Mary Kenny
Aubrey Malone