In the broad Church that is Catholicism, there are so many strands of interest, even within the ambit of orthodoxy – some are big into ecology, some into life issues, some into social justice. When it comes to prayer and ritual there is also so much variety, so it ill behoves one tribe to snipe…
Frank Litton Note by the Books Editor: The publication of a cheaper paperback, mass market edition of this highly praised title prompts us to reprint what our regular reviewer wrote when it was first published a few years ago, as the book will be found immensely readable and enlightening by ordinary readers, by students,…
The Slavic Myths by Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak (Thames and Hudson, £20.00/ €23.50) The strange world of Slavic myths is usually beyond the imaginative reach of those of us brought up in Western Europe. However, many years ago now, when I was at college in the USA, I had a regular place I sat…
Last month I ventured again to the Salzburg festival. It may seem odd that I didn’t hear a note of Mozart in his home city but my package of four operas and an orchestral concert by the visiting Berlin Philharmonic excluded him. The operas in my portfolio were Verdi’s Macbeth and Falstaff, Berlioz’ The Trojans,…
I am Infinitely Loved: A Month of Meditations by Brian Grogan SJ (Messenger Publications, €7.99/ £6.95) This is a new edition of a booklet first published back 2017. It was popular then, and in its new form will reach an even larger audience of those who are now regular readers of Brian Grogan’s many books.…
Samuel Goldwyn once said, “If you’ve got a message, send a telegram”. I’d add, if you want to preach, give a sermon. The new TV drama series The Woman in the Wall (BBC One, Sundays), three episodes in, is full of unsubtle messages and is certainly preachy. The story of the Magdalen laundries is mined…
Ancestral Voices in Irish Politics: Judging Dillon and Parnell, by Paul Bew (Oxford University Press, £25.00/ €29.50) The great Irish constitutional nationalist movement of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, with its twin aims of land reform and Home Rule, has been largely disregarded and uncelebrated in the Ireland that emerged from the 1916…
Fragments of Truth: Pallottines in Kenya & Tanzania, with the Rwanda Dossier, volumes I & II, by Donal F. McCarthy SCA (Pallottines Ireland, Dundrum, Dublin; the copies are on a print on demand system and priced accordingly) The Pallottines are a religious congregation who are more formally known as the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Societas…
Sound of Freedom (15A) Tim Ballard is a former CEO of the Nazarene Fund. This was set up to help persecuted religious and ethnic minorities. He’s also the founder of an organisation called Operations. Underground Railroad which specialises in rescuing child victims of sex traffickers. Jim Caviezel, who took the role of Jesus in Mel…
A People under Siege: the Unionists of Northern Ireland, from Partition to Brexit and Beyond, by Aaron Edwards (Merrion Press, €19.99) A touchy defensiveness, if not downright paranoia, has often seemed to be the defining character of Ulster Unionism since it first began to emerge as a distinct political phenomenon in the 19th Century. Aaron…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone