Last week I finished the good, the bad and the ugly of the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Since then, I’ve enjoyed the genuine sportsmanship and especially the impressive achievements of the Irish competitors. Watching Paris Olympics 2024, on RTÉ 2 for the most part, I’ve found it noteworthy to see so many participants blessing…
sometimes the secular media takes an interest in religious faith only when it involves some sort of distorted version of religion. Having reviewed it a few episodes in, last Monday I finally got to the end of Under the Banner of Heaven (RTÉ One)– the true crime drama about murder in a Mormon community. I…
Last week started with US President Joe Biden calling for a cooling of the temperature of public discourse. The week ended with him bowing out of the presidential race. On Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) Luke Ming Flanagan MEP hadn’t got the Biden memo on cooling and called Ursula Von Der Leyen a “monster”.…
It was one of those shocking moments when you’ll always remember where you were when it happened. I heard the first trickle of the news of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in the car on the way back from a concert last Saturday night. Then it was straight on to Sky News and CNN…
How we treat our children is something of a conundrum, but doing it well is surely a mark of how caring and genuine our society is. I observe how much we love our children, how most parents would do anything for them, even give their own lives if required. We see the unbearable grief when…
Well, I think Mad World has to be my theme song this week. Maybe there’s nothing new under the sun, but previous generations would surely be mystified by some of last week’s goings on. One of the high-profile events of the week was a US presidential debate where an oldish guy, a convicted felon, debated…
We don’t like to talk too much about death. It’s the ultimate elephant in the room – inevitable and ignored for as long as possible, while we use euphemism to whistle past the graveyard. On The Moral Maze (BBC Radio 4, Wednesday), many of the issues surrounding death were literally interrogated as the panel quizzed…
I have felt for a long time that the Church needs to get its act together on same-sex attraction. There have been too many own goals, too many myths, too many misunderstandings. I’d suggest what is needed is clear, orthodox and challenging teaching expressed and effected in the most modern, empathic, compassionate and pastoral way…
There is a phenomenon I’d call ‘the illusion of consultation’ – e.g. where a government or one of its offshoots consults the public on a topic, and then proceeds to do what they were going to do anyway. The current consultation on the new Primary school Curriculum was featured on Newstalk Breakfast Thursday, June 6.…
For many, religion can be inspirational and enhancing, bringing out the best in people as they try to live in a harmonious relationship with God, each other and nature. But it can turn sour if infected by extremism, and that draws the media like a magnet. Cults are a particularly ugly manifestation of this, a…
Brendan O’Regan