While the à la carte variety of Catholicism is thoroughly accepted and even lauded in mainstream media there are inherent inconsistencies. If, say, a vile racist people trafficker was claiming to be a Catholic in good standing, would the usual suspects be as tolerant as they are when the Church’s teachings on sexuality are dismissed?…
Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven (Studies in Violence, Mimesis and Culture series / Michigan State University Press, US$29.95 pb) Frank Litton René Girard, who died in 2015, was one of the leading thinkers of our era – a provocative sage who bypassed prevailing orthodoxies to offer a bold, sweeping vision of…
Discovering the Boyne Valley by Noel French (Mercier Press., €14.99) Christopher Moriarty A small river, in quite a small country, yet a portion of the Boyne Valley contains an amazing wealth of solid remnants which incorporate a huge spectrum of human civilisation. A day trip can include them all and a good guidebook can outline the…
Kissing Candice (18) Midway through this psychedelic odyssey – the hell that is modern Ireland – I found myself thinking how much Ann Skelly, its main star, resembled Lady Lavery. And how, if Lady Lavery was the iconic image of a more halcyon time, Skelly could go on to become the face of the not so…
“It’s funny, I haven’t seen any outcry from ‘pro-life’ organisations about the treatment of children at the border,” observed author and columnist Jessica Valenti last week on her @jessicavalenti Twitter account. It was, she claimed, almost as though such organisations couldn’t care less about “actual babies”. Retweeted over 70,000 times, it’s worth reflecting on in…
With the increased popularity of podcasts, it’s worth noting the extensive archive of RTÉ Radio 1’s Documentary on One series. Last Saturday’s episode, ‘Sisters’, was Emma Decker’s engaging exploration of the lives of her grand aunts Sr Joe and Sr Gabrielle, who went to the US as teens to become nuns. They worked primarily with…
The Notebook Fr Bernard Healy Recently Bishop Ray Browne of Kerry launched a book that was banned by one of his predecessors. The book – Fr. Ferris’s Parish Histories: BallymacElligott, Ballyseedy, O’Brennan and Nohoval – was ready for printing in 1932, but Bishop Michael O’Brien put a stop to its publication. The eponymous Fr…
Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith by Emma Mason (Oxford University Press, €30.00; available also as an ebook) John F. Deane The ever popular Christmas carol In the Bleak Mid-Winter was written by Christina Rossetti but holds its fame more from the musical setting by Gustav Holst than by the strength of the poem. Rossetti wrote a great…
The Faith Journey of the Déise People by Michael G. Olden (Diocese of Waterford & Lismore, €40.00 + €11.00 p&p; available from The Book Centre, 25 John Roberts Square, Waterford, tel: 051-873823, website@thebookcentre.ie) In the introduction to his new book Msgr Olden states that his aim is to provide a history of the diocese of Waterford…
Am I a Feminist? Are You? by Mary Kenny (New Island Books, €13.95) Those who can recall earlier manifestations of Mary Kenny might be daunted by a title so redolent of the #metoo generation and the fierce quarrels of the present day gender wars. But the present-day Mary is a person of great experience as well…
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone
Greg Daly
Peter Costello