Francis gives St Peter’s bone fragments to Orthodox leader Pope Francis has unexpectedly given a reliquary containing what are believed to be bone fragments of St Peter to Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, an ecumenical gesture that has generated controversy among some Catholics. The Pope took the reliquary from the chapel in the papal apartments, where Pope…
Everyday Philosophy Your humble columnist has encountered quite a few people who claim to be moral relativists. All of these people are wrong: not wrong to be moral relativists, but wrong in claiming that they actually are moral relativists. My contention – I know it’s a bold claim – is that no-one except a…
Walking Backwards to Heaven? Hope and the Catholics of Cloyne Diocese, 1700 – 1830 by Martin Millerick (Diocese of Cloyne, €10.00 + 3.40 Postage Eire, €5.70 UK; Cathedral Bookshop, Cobh, Cloyne Diocesan Office & bookshops) Martin Millerick’s new book is a scholarly history of the Catholic diocese of Cloyne in the 17th and 18th Centuries.…
Kentucky death penalty protocol ‘unconstitutional’ A Franklin County Circuit judge ruled last week that Kentucky’s death penalty regulations are unconstitutional because they fail to provide for an automatic stay of execution for intellectually disabled inmates. The Catholic Conference of Kentucky and Fr Patrick Delahanty, retired chair of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty,…
The Notebook Fr Bernard Healy I try to visit the Isle of Wight for a few days every year. I sometimes joke that with its faded Victorian seaside resorts, relaxed way of life and quaint country villages that it’s a chance to take a short holiday in the 1950s. However, when I visit, I’m…
We – all six of us – have just come back from a holiday in the beautiful city of Brugge in Belgium. We had met in the airport in Dublin, delighted at the prospect of going away together. That evening, having settled into our AirBnB, we went out for a walk. Along by the canals,…
Personal Profile Madison Duddy At the age of 16, Co. Carlow native Julianne Donlon Stanz climbed Croagh Patrick where she and her peers had a “transformative encounter with God”. She felt like God spoke to her, so she wanted to strengthen her relationship with the Lord. During her education, Julianne realised she wanted to…
Dear Editor, Your coverage of Google and Youtube’s interference with last year’s abortion referendum process (IC 4/7/2019) raises grave questions about Irish democracy and its susceptibility to the caprices and biases of multinational tech corporations. Yes, it is true that it was not simply pro-life organisations and terms that were affected by manual tinkering with…
Sweet Treats Laura Anderson This simple dessert which means ‘cooked cream’ in Italian is luxurious, sweet and creamy with just the right amount of tartness coming from the mangos. Be sure to invest in some ripe, juicy mangos – it will make all the difference. This recipe relies on gelatin to set the cream.…
One of the best homilies I ever heard was preached a month after the beatification of Cardinal Newman, when in a Mass to welcome the newly beatified cardinal’s relics to Manchester’s Oratorian church a priest of the Oxford Oratory spoke about differences between Britain’s 1982 and 2010 papal visits. After Pope St John Paul II’s…
Ben Conroy
Bairbre Cahill
Greg Daly