Probably the single most commonly asked question this week in casual conversation, in lines at grocery store lines and post offices, in telephone calls and messages on WhatsApp, and pretty much everywhere else humans interact, is some version of the following: “So, how was your Christmas?” For most of us, answering that question requires a…
An accusation frequently levelled at the Church is that while it talks a good game regarding helping the impoverished, it actually hoards its riches in a very immoral way. Comments such as “The Pope lives in a palace” or “The Church should sell some of its treasure to help the poor” are commonplace in this…
The US Supreme Court said December 27 that a federal public health rule that allows immigration officials at the border to quickly turn away migrants seeking asylum could stay in place while legal challenges to the policy played out. In a 5-4 decision, the justices stopped a trial judge’s ruling that would have lifted the…
Fire breaks out in Brazil’s Aparecida shrine A fire broke out in the Chapel of the Candles at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The fire started around 8am local time. According to the Marian shrine, the fire started because a candle had been placed on a pew.…
Letter from USA Fr Paul Seil experienced a Christmas unlike any other in his 67 years of life in Buffalo, New York. In the midst of the multiday blizzard that paralysed parts of western New York, Fr Seil, chaplain for the Buffalo Fire Department, had to evacuate the rectory at his parish in the city’s…
Starring Catholic convert Alec Guinness as a mild-mannered bank attendant who happens to be in charge of shipments of gold, The Lavender Hill Mob is a whimsical 1951 comedy made by Ealing studios. It gets onto the Vatican’s great films list from 1995 under the ‘art’ section. It is an odd choice for the Vatican’s…
Love comes first, Pope says in letter on St Francis de Sales The most important question a Christian can ask when making any decision in life is “where the greatest love is to be found,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter marking the 400th anniversary of St Francis de Sales, a doctor of the Church.…
Saint of the Week A mother of five who went on to become a religious sister and the United States’ first saint is one of the examples the Church pays tribute to January 4. St Elizabeth Ann Seton was born Elizabeth Ann Bayley, into a prosperous Protestant family from New York in 1774 – a…
The release of files for the 1990s and earlier in January previewed Archives and the making of history This year’s release was a poor year for anything not related to Northern Ireland and Arms decommissioning. The flood of 6,000 odd files relating to Northern Ireland affairs seriously unbalances the release of files in other departmental…
Dear Editor, As usual Catholic schools are found to be at the top of school leader boards in the south, and according to a recent poll, in the North as well. The recent poll highlighted by your paper [The Irish Catholic – December 15, 2022] in which three out of the top five schools in…
John L. Allen Jr.
Ruadhán Jones
Peter Costello