Personal Profile Timmy Manley admits that he was initially roped into joining his local Legion of Mary praesidium – but now, 62 years later, he continues to serve in the lay apostolate. The Watergrasshill and Glenville branch of the Legion was started in 1952, one the earlier ones to start in Co. Cork, Mr Manley…
Study shows endangered species can reproduce without mating California condors, a critically endangered species, can reproduce without mating, according to a study by conservation scientists at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. During a routine analysis of biological samples from the California condors in the zoo’s breeding programme, the scientists found that two condor chicks…
A Parent’s Perspective A young woman I was talking to thought it would be difficult to ask her four friends, who are atheists, to accompany her into the church to light a candle. She’s Catholic, while they don’t believe in God; the presumption might be that such an invitation would be rejected. It’s a pretty…
The Catholic Church has always embraced meditation on death, and November is the month most associated with that, writes Jason Osborne The leaves continue to fall from the trees as nature uses the rest of autumn to prepare for winter, a fitting natural symbol of death, which is at the forefront of Catholic minds in the…
Personal Profile When Dr Alex O’Hara visited Clonmacnoise as an eleven-year-old, he could hardly have known that it would be a life-defining moment. But looking back now, the professor of early Church history and Irish monasticism knows that this visit and another to a monastery in Normandy had a “profound effect” on him. Dr O’Hara’s…
“To tell someone, with fullness of heart, ‘I love you’, is virtually the same as saying, ‘You shall never die.’ Twentieth century philosopher Gabriel Marcel wrote those words and they echo words written 500 years earlier by Blessed Magdalen Panattieri, a Dominican Tertiary, who wrote to a friend, “I could not be happy in heaven…
Self-driving race cars make history in Indianapolis The winner was not a driver but an algorithm at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the top car clocked an average speed of 218km/h, ushering autonomous vehicles into a new era. Setting the record pace over two laps, a team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) won…
Children’s Corner Energy is constantly changing forms and transferring between objects. There are many forms of energy, a few science whizzes may have heard of what is known as the law of conservation of energy: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed – only converted from one form of energy to another.” Why don’t we…
The Sunday Gospel The first reading and Gospel today (Mark 12:38-44) feature poor widows who gave all they had. The evangelist Mark had a habit of following the teaching of Jesus with the example of some person who embodies or exemplifies that lesson. Last Sunday we heard the answer of Jesus to the question of what was…
The latest trends and advances in technology are changing funeral practices in Ireland and around the world, writes Jason Osborne The world seems more fluid than ever before, and even the age-old traditions surrounding death and funerals aren’t immune to the effects of the current trends and technology reshaping everything we know. Speaking to The Irish…
Ruadhán Jones
Maria Byrne
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Chai Brady