In the coming week we’ll be hearing a lot about Blessed Carlo Acutis, the young Catholic due to be canonised on Sunday, September 7, along with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati – see programmes in Pick of the Week. Songs of Praise (BBC One, Sunday) devoted a programme to miracles, with a timely focus on Blessed…
If you need cheering up after watching the News I have some good stuff for you this week. A story of faith featured on the first episode of The Hills Are Alive – A Year at Kylemore Abbey (RTÉ One, Sunday). It was such an enjoyable programme, cheerful, prayerful and even playful. A lot of…
Being introspective is not always a case of being self-centred or indulging in navel-gazing. And so, it is important from time to time for the media to look at itself – reviewing and learning. Hope in the Media (Radio Maria, Wednesday) is a new show with host Donal O’Sullivan-Latchford of the Family and Media Association…
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…
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.…
Joe Duffy’s departure from Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1) last Friday was the end of a media era. Some will be sad, some will be happy. The final episode with Joe at the helm was rightly a cheerful and celebratory affair and the essence of it was well captured on Playback (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday). Joe…
And so, it has been another rotten week for the right to life. Last week I ended with the proposed decriminalisation of abortion for England and Wales, and unfortunately it came to pass. This happened last Tuesday, getting the week off to a grim start. It proved yet again how permissive abortion laws are inevitably…
Last week I was writing about care of the elderly in nursing homes. This week, the caring was closer to actual home. Young carers were highlighted on The Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk, Tuesday) when the host spoke to two impressive young carers. Both were school-goers and came across as very mature for their age, not…
It must be hard for those with a secure home to fully appreciate the experience of homelessness. Gradually becoming homeless is bad enough, being yanked violently out of your home must be so much more heartbreaking. An historical example was outlined in the moving documentary Saving a Man – the Role of the Church During…
The polarisation and extremism typical of political discourse in the USA was shown once again last week by the awful murders of the young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. News reports showed the alleged perpetrator shouting ‘Free Palestine’, as if his evil act could further that…
Brendan O’Regan