Christians in China’s central Henan province have been banned from displaying religious couplets over Chinese New Year. Government officials visited villages and towns to deliver notices ordering people not to follow a practice that has become a tradition during the festival. Local Catholics are concerned that a new round of religious oppression is aimed at the province. With black…
The number of children attending Catholic primary schools in Ireland is increasing according to the latest Department of Education enrolment data. Almost 2,600 additional denominational primary school places were created this year compared to last which represents an increase of 0.5%. Similarly, there was a 0.8% rise in the number of students attending denominational post…
The Rev. Billy Graham, a fiery Baptist preacher who was easily the most famous evangelist of the 20th Century and for decades one of the world figures most admired by Americans, died earlier this month at his home in Montreat. He was 99. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years, although he continued…
The widespread practice of Catholics receiving communion in the hand while standing up is part of Satan’s attack on the Church, the head of the Vatican department dealing with liturgy has said. In the preface to a book on the subject, Cardinal Robert Sarah lamented the lack of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, saying this…
The spring sun is finally making an appearance and the garden is about to become very busy as the growing season gets under way. The sunny days in March provide the opportunity for an increasing range of gardening tasks such as preparing seed beds, sowing seed, cutting back winter shrubs and generally tidying up. Shrubs…
Richard Fitzgerald has spent a lifetime looking through his camera lens with a dedicated eye. His latest book is Dark Ireland: Images of a lost world. Richard says: “the photographs in this book happened because of my upbringing in rural Ireland; it is a world I knew intimately before emigration was forced upon me. In the years following my departure, I became…
The Family Tree: Reflections for the World Meeting of Families 2018 by Anna Burke (Veritas, €7.99) Emily Keyes The World Meeting of Families, which comes to Dublin in August, is an international event occurring every three years that uses prayer, celebration and catechesis to stress the importance of family life in society. In preparation Anne Burke…
Over recent decades readers of academic books on history and archaeology, and even some ordinary mass market trade books, will have noticed the increasing use of the term ‘Common Era’ (CE) rather than the older BC and AD for describing dates, the system familiar for centuries. This new usage arose from the reluctance of some…
A Co. Cavan man is “delighted and humbled” by the generosity of farmers around Ireland contributing machinery for a farm school in Burkina Faso. Paul Connolly and seven others, spent over a week building a milking parlour near Pahin, Burkina Faso immediately after Christmas. The Cavan optician, whose business is part of the ‘Economy of Communion’…
Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa by Paul Kenyon (Head of Zeus, £17) Peter Hegarty Many millions of Africans have lived under tyrants, endured long years of oppression, and watched in enraged impotence as the dictators squandered public money on the erection of grandiose monuments to themselves. What explains the rise of strongmen in so many…
Colm Fitzpatrick
Paul Gargan
Peter Costello
Susan Gately