The Faithful should respect everyone’s right to share their views as the Church continues on its synodal journey, Bishop Ger Nash of the Diocese of Ferns has said in his Christmas message. He said that Pope Francis has called for a new conversation to take place within the Catholic Church in order “that we might…
Catholics in Ireland have an important role to play in fostering the “soul of Europe”, Bishop Noel Treanor told The Irish Catholic. Fostering this soul is a “challenge and imperative to work for the promotion of the good [via the European project], for the realisation of what’s true and global and enhancing”, said Bishop Treanor,…
The Gospel for this Sunday is the prologue of the Gospel of John. For the past week we have had the stories of the birth of Jesus and the events of his early life. But John begins with a vast timescale of God’s action, going back to the eons before creation and then advances through…
Personal Profile Massachusetts native Fr Gary Chamberland CSC has been rector of the Notre-Dame Centre for Faith and Reason in Dublin at University Church, St Stephen’s Green for a little over a year-and-a-half. Undertaking the role in July 2020, Fr Chamberland has already faced unprecedented challenges during his ministry in Ireland, with Covid dampening the priest’s ambitious plans. But as Fr Chamberland’s pathway…
Businessman Declan Ganley’s High Court challenge over the legality of the ban on public worship which has been in place at various stages throughout the Covid-19 pandemic has now been dismissed. Mr Justice Charles Meenan said that Mr Ganley’s challenge was now pointless, as the situation has lapsed. Mr Ganley argued that although the regulations…
A former Labour MP, in Britain, Ann Keen, certainly achieved a personal and political goal this past year of 2021. She succeeded in getting the Westminster government to announce an inquiry into forced adoptions in Britain between the 1950s and the 1970s. Mrs Keen, former parliamentary secretary to Gordon Brown, has also called for an official…
‘Negaholism’ is a term that is used to describe the state or condition of being addicted to negative thinking. Counsellors and therapists more-and-more see it as a psychological addiction that has an impact on a person’s overall quality of life. Of course, it’s important to distinguish between negaholism and deep-seated clinical depression which is a…
“I sometimes see people wearing shirts that say ex-Catholic or something,” Harry Lennix tells me over Zoom, taking a break from filming season nine of the exceptionally popular TV-thriller The Blacklist. “But I don’t see how that’s possible in my own life. Even though I have from time to time studied other religions, I could…
The story is told, by the Victorian writer H.C. Adams, of a student in the 1870s who was asked by an academic in an early exam in divinity at Oxford, “What is the distance from Bethany to Jerusalem?” “A mile and a half,” was the immediate reply. “I think not sir,” re-joined the examiner: “the…
My father always had a merry soul. He still does. And he also had a remarkably prodigious memory. There wasn’t a traditional or seannós song he didn’t know. It was as if on the first hearing of a song he soaked up and absorbed not just every line, but every nuance, ornamentation, and flourish, of…
Ruadhán Jones
Mary Kenny
Michael Kelly
Peter Costello