Dialogue and respectful understanding are the prerequisites for social harmony and world peace, Hong Kong Cardinal John Tong Hon told a symposium on Christianity and China. “If we see only our own reasons and insist on our own experience as the norm, thereby denying the basis of other people’s experience, then disagreement, quarrels and even…
In both our piety and our agnosticism we sometimes put God on trial and whenever we do that, it’s we who end up being judged. We see that in the Gospel accounts of the trial of Jesus, particularly in John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel, as we know, paints a portrait of Jesus from the point of…
Dirty Glory: Go Where Your Best Prayers Take You by Pete Greig (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99) Emily Keyes In a world that seems increasingly ambivalent to religion and God, Pete Greig’s ‘24-7 prayer revolution’ is nothing short of incredible. Started in 1999, the prayer movement began as a humble gathering of young people curious to learn…
Dear Editor, I am a young Catholic woman in her twenties, and I am writing to challenge the assumption that the Church is a misogynistic institution. The Oxford dictionary defines a misogynist as “a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women”. For some, the Church is misogynistic because it does not ordain…
Pat O’Kelly Despite visiting Leipzig last year during its annual Bach Festival, my musical encounters centred not on Johann Sebastian but on Claudio Monteverdi, as the event also celebrated the Italian master’s 450th anniversary through his proto-opera Orfeo and magnificent Vespers of the Blessed Virgin. The St Nicholas Lutheran Church provided the resplendent ecumenical…
Based on the Oberammergau script and adapted for stage performances, a huge cast of amateur actors and a talented choir from Camross and several areas of the diocese will bring to life the story of Christ in Camross Hall in Wexford. Under the stage direction of Michael Stafford and musical direction of Vicky Barron and…
Ironically, after celebrating St Patrick abroad and at home, Government figures lost no time in getting down to making it easier to end the lives of unborn children. The issue figured intensively in the media most of the week and I wasn’t too pleased with RTÉ’s idea of balanced coverage. It felt at times too…
The Notebook Fr Vincent Sherlock The Lent has passed and hopefully it treated you well. Looking back we might well identify moments of great grace and moments of failure but, combined, they are the story of Lent and the pathway to where we now gather. Easter Sunday can be unfairly seen as the poor…
Letter from Rome In Catholic circles high and low, a widely reported potential deal between the Vatican and China over the appointment of bishops is stirring varied reactions. While some hail the accord as a critically important way for the Church to deepen ties with a global superpower, others see it as capitulation in…
It’s the last stand of the snowmen. As I write, our once-proud snowman, is standing forlorn, misshapen and incongruous, in our green and florid garden. The spring sunshine is blazing down on him like a lethal nuclear blast. I sense that mortality is on his mind. This has been a long winter which, even in…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Brendan O’Regan
John L. Allen Jr.
Rory Fitzgerald