Food, cooking fuel, jobs and, especially, hope are hard to come by in Syria, said two Catholic leaders reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the war. “We feel forgotten. The sanctions have thrown the country further into desperation: 83% of the population is below the poverty line. We can’t do it anymore. Enough,” said Maronite…
The vaccine delay is the “overarching factor” that has changed people’s attitudes to the lockdown, according to Professor of Psychiatry Patricia Casey. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Professor Casey said the delay is “very distressing for people” and encouraged them to get in touch with their TDs to express how “disgruntled” they are. “This is…
A History of the Church through its Buildings by Alan Doig (Oxford University Press, £30.00) This is an unusual book by an author with unusual talents. Alan Doig studied architecture at King’s College Cambridge, later completing a doctorate in the same field. Having taught history of art for some seven years he was ordained into the Church…
Belfast playwright Mick Draine’s short film addresses a pressing issue in NI, writes Ruadhán Jones Suicide is an urgent issue in Northern Ireland. A 2019 report by the mental health charity Samaritans revealed that suicide rates in Northern Ireland are higher than anywhere in the UK or in Ireland. For example, men and women are…
The liberal view of sexual relationship is so dominant it is coming to regard any opposing views as a form of bigotry, writes David Quinn The Catholic Church places contraceptive use among acts it considers “intrinsically evil”. This is extremely strong language, rarely heard today. When Pope St Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae in 1968,…
Fortune’s Many Houses: A Victorian Visionary, a Noble Scottish Family, and a Lost inheritance by Simon Welfare (Simon & Schuster, £25.00) Here in Ireland for many people in the early 20th century (and some even now) the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen were figures of folklore among many nationalists, as both Lord Lieutenant Johnny Gordon and…
Letter from Rome Catholicism is a vast, riotously diverse global institution, counting 1.3 billion members scattered in every nook and cranny of the planet. As a result, Catholic experience is a constant interplay between the universal and the local, a few basic constants refracted and lived out in a stunning myriad of different milieu. One…
Trainer Paul Hennessy whose horse ‘Heaven Help Us’ snatched an impressive victory in the Coral Cup at the Cheltenham Festival opened up about the religious names of some of his other horses over the weekend. Mr Hennessy said on RTÉ’s CountryWide that the winning horse’s siblings all have religious names. The mother of Heaven Help…
If the Equal Rights Amendment were to become part of the US Constitution, its opponents say, it will actually harm women’s interests and invalidate pro-life policies, such as the federal Hyde Amendment and all state restrictions on tax-funded abortions. Its supporters say it will protect women from discrimination in the workplace, domestic violence and sexual…
From birth in a mother and baby home to a life full of gratitude, one former resident shares her feelings as told to Jason Osborne I have no memories of the sisters of the Good Shepherd as I was only a baby when I was in the home in Dunboyne in the 1970s. My mother…
Peter Costello
Ruadhán Jones
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.