The poverty of loneliness and how the Church can combat it

Every time I visit Holycross Abbey, Ballycahill, Co. Tipperary, it lifts my heart. The parish priest, Fr Celsus Tierney, is a wonderful host. Founded as a Cistercian Abbey in 1182 AD by Dónal Mór Ó Briain, King of Thomond, it became an important medieval pilgrimage site because it housed a relic of the True Cross.…