Michael W. Higgins One could be forgiven for thinking that it has never been as bad as this—Church authority assailed from within and from without, the episcopate in so many jurisdictions discredited, the papacy under siege from schismatic factions, the non-Catholic world appalled by a level of corruption the magnitude of which seems incomprehensible,…
Letter from Rome Moments of great crisis generally affect institutions in multiple ways, some of which are immediately evident and others that take longer to discern. Amid the clerical abuse scandals currently rocking Catholicism, it’s worth asking if one such long-term result is playing out before our eyes. To wit, are we seeing a…
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World by Bart D. Ehrman (One World, £20.00) Recently we have had several histories of early and medieval Christianity written from a very traditional Catholic point of view. These have in their way been very reassuring, but perhaps only by passing over darker passages in the…
If ever there was a baffling headline in Ireland’s self-proclaimed ‘newspaper of reference’, it was last week’s ‘Primary teachers disproportionately white, Irish and Catholic’, with its equally perplexing sub-head ‘NUI Galway finds Irish-nationality teachers “significantly overrepresented”’. For those inclined to skimming headlines and moving on, confusion about the Irish Times article will mainly have been…
Catholics will continue to regard sex outside marriage as a sin despite India’s Supreme Court ruling that adultery will no longer be a crime, Church leaders say. The country’s top court has struck down a 158-year-old British-era law which said it was a crime, punishable with a five-year jail term, for a man to have…
Spoilt Rotten: Memoirs of Jack McKenna by Jack McKenna (North Kerry Literary Trust, €15.00; contact St. Johns Arts & Heritage Centre, The Square, Listowel, Co. Kerry; tel: 068-22566) This autobiography, by a novice author as old as the century, is a valuable local history written from an urban perspective. For many years the author was in charge…
The Government needs to “wake up” and commit to protecting Christians who are persecuted globally for their faith, an Irish charity has said. Church in Chains, an outreach group which focuses on raising awareness of the plight of persecuted Christians world-wide, said that our Government is failing to protect the rights of religious groups. Launching…
Christians are being persecuted at a worryingly unprecedented level, writes Colm Fitzpatrick Since the emergence of Christianity, those who have spiritually identified with Jesus have been ostracised, jeered and persecuted. We learn in the New Testament that St Paul was imprisoned in Rome for preaching and according to Church tradition, the apostles all lay…
An Irish nun has said the number of patients who were treated without hospital beds last month is “unbelievable” and the Government should figure out a solution. Sr Pat Donovan, a member of the Catholic Healthcare Council of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, speaking in a personal capacity said that it’s “unbelievable in this day…
Pope John Paul II in Ireland: A Plea for Peace (12A) Did the 1979 visit of Pope John Paul II to our shores eventually impact on the Good Friday Agreement that saw “the force of argument”, as this fascinating documentary puts it, replacing “the argument of force”? Or as Seamus Heaney said, helped “hope and history rhyme”? It frames his visit in the context…
John L. Allen Jr.
Peter Costello
Greg Daly
Colm Fitzpatrick
Aubrey Malone