The Chaldean Patriarchate in Iraq has begun to distribute funds to dioceses and parishes to begin the rebuilding of communities in areas liberated from so-called Islamic State (ISIS). As Patriarch Raphael Louis Sako I led a delegation to the Nineveh Plain las week to view for himself the damage inflicted on homes and churches by…
Order of Malta Grand Master resigns The grand master of the Knights of Malta has resigned after Pope Francis declared all actions undertaken by him since the December dismissal of Grand Chancellor Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager “null and void”. According to the National Catholic Register, Fra’ Matthew Festing was summoned to an audience with Pope…
Students from the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan hold signs during the annual March for Life in Washington DC on January 27. Photo: CNS
Dear Editor, In regard to the incident on The Late Late Show two weeks ago where the Eucharist was openly mocked and ridiculed, it’s difficult to know what was the worst aspect of the whole sorry episode. Was it the ignorance, the gratuitous contempt shown, the studied insult to those who actually pay to keep…
“Governments and great political movements have tried to take away the sins of the world and have often ended up becoming more corrupt and destructive themselves”, writes Fr Martin Delaney A recent Sunday gospel proclaimed the familiar words: “Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” With those…
Welcome to the world of alternative truth The row that erupted after President Trump’s inauguration between Team Trump and the media about the attendance at the inauguration has thrown up some interesting attitudes to what some of us I suppose are old fashioned enough to call ‘truth’. Pilate may have turned away with the philosophical…
Peter Hegarty Greenpeace Captain by Peter Willcox with Ronald B.Weiss (Sandstone Press, £9.99) In his memoir, seafarer Peter Willcox drolly recalls the 30 years he has devoted to creating ‘chaos and spectacle’ to heighten awareness of destruction of the environment. Activism is dangerous. He was on board the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour in July 1985…
Tired of all the Bad News by Fr Bryan Shortall (Columba, €12.99) This might be just the book for The Donald when he feels particularly hard done by. But Fr Bryan, a Capuchin, while accepting that we seem to live in a period suffused by negativity, not just in the news but in life, has…
The Bible in One Year, New International Version read by David Suchet CBE (Hodder and Stoughton, £29.99; also available as a digital download) David Suchet is one of the popular and talented actors of his time, famous for in incarnation of Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Poirot (whose ‘little grey cells’ were informed by the conscience…
Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Malcolm Guite (Hodder and Stoughton, £25.00) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan are two poems known in some way to anyone anywhere who reads English. Yet there was more to Samuel Taylor Coleridge than these and a handful of other poems. He was also …
Peter Costello