The Church’s ‘war’ on Hollywood, which I’ve been writing about in recent weeks, was ratcheted up in the 1930s by Cardinal George Mundelein. One of America’s most influential figures, he urged his congregation to shun films of questionable ethics. As a result, over eight million Catholics took a pledge against watching ‘impurity’ on screen. That…
Dalkey: an Illustrated History, by John Martin (Wordwell / Eastwood Books, €20.00 / £17.50) This is not merely a good book; it really is a most excellent one. John Martin is well-qualified to write this topographical tour-de-force, being a long-time Dalkey resident, a former town planner, latterly serving in the Department of the Environment. …
Irish history is at times more influenced by places than by persons. Ask many Irish people of an older or rural background where they are from and they will answer (much like the famous Tailor of Garrynapeaka) with a mention, not of the parish they were born in, but the actual townland, the smallest property…
The Glenstal Prayerbook: A Benedictine Book of Prayer (Red Stripe Press, €14.99 / £13.00) Back in 2001 the first form of the Glenstal Prayerbook, then published by Columba Press, was a great popular success. It brought the old established prayer tradition of the Benedictine order out of the monastery and into the hands of…
The Anchorage Bernard O’Donoghue Faber and Faber, £12.99 / €16.99 One of the few photographs of Bernard O’Donoghue before he left Cork for England, in an era when only returned Yanks had cameras, was taken in 1960 at the ordination of Daniel O’ Leary, my first cousin (later to become a celebrated author and theologian). …
It has become an annual event, a sad milestone, a predictable outcome. Yes, it’s the release of abortion figures, and the tragic total for 2024 was 10,852. You’d expect such a death toll to cause shock and outrage, but media coverage was minimal. Even as we agonise over the Tuam babies, we can manage to…
Conversations in the Spirit: A Guide to the Synodal Method Juan A. Guerrero Alaves SJ & Oscar Martin López SJ, with a prologue by Pope Francis, translated by Austen Ivereigh Messenger Publications, €14.95 / The cover image of this book in a certain way sums up the idea behind the book as a whole. Through…
I recently wrote about the film industry’s problems with the Catholic Church in the early years of the last century. Falling audiences were an associated problem. The Depression almost killed off the industry. After it ended, a bacchanalian atmosphere reigned, leading to material unsuitable for family audiences appearing in a profusion of the works being…
The Doré Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy Search Press, £19.00 / €20.50 Gustave Doré (1832-1883), a cradle Catholic born in the conflicted city of Strasbourg, was an artist whose anxious imagination was suffused with an engagement with the supernatural on many levels. Some years ago, I think in 2006, my wife and I on a visit…
An aspect of the Catholic Church we can be proud of is the work undertaken abroad by Irish missionaries, clerical and lay, whether in the work of spreading the Gospel and the work of service to people in need, for example through education and healthcare – two strands that are not mutually exclusive or contradictory.…
Aubrey Malone
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan