Ireland is seeing growing “violent extremism” against migrants the Bishop of Cork and Ross Fintan Gavin and his Church of Ireland counterpart Bishop Paul Colton warned in their Christmas message.
Did you know that JRR Tolkien translated the Bible? Well, not all of it, but he did translate the Book of Jonah for The Jerusalem Bible, which many of us will have heard or read without knowing the connection with the world’s best-known Catholic author.
As each New Year dawns, we marvel at the passage of time. We take stock of our lives, and how far we’ve come, and how far we have yet to travel. Time inevitably brings change. Yet few of us, as individuals, have changed nearly as much as this Irish nation in which we live.
Why don’t we preach hellfire anymore? That’s a question asked frequently today by a lot of sincere religious people who worry that too many parishes and too many priests and ministers have gone soft on sin and are over-generous in speaking about God’s mercy.
President Michael D. Higgins has echoed Pope Francis warning against the “globalisation of indifference” in his message for Christmas 2023. In his message, the President reflected on growing global tensions due to wars in the Holy Land and Ukraine, as well as the dangers of the climate crisis. “We think in particular of all of…
It’s usually fathers who ask me, and usually – about two-thirds of the time – daughters they’re asking for. Their children want to become writers or journalists, and they ask me to tell them how to do that. (No one has ever asked me to talk to his child about becoming an editor.)
As Catholics, we know that, at Christmas, we’re heralding the inauguration of a peace that the world cannot give. Throughout Advent we await the coming of the Messiah, and then on that glorious day, he comes among us in the gentlest of forms; a vulnerable, newborn baby.
In paragraph 30 of his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis wrote, “Every family should look to the icon of the Holy Family of Nazareth”. As we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, God’s word invites reflection on the joys, responsibilities and challenges of family life in the light of Christian faith and discipleship.
In January, The Irish Catholic commemorated the late Pope Benedict XVI who was laid to rest in a simple funeral procession presided over by Pope Francis at the Vatican
The year 2023 is not a year on which I will look back with undiluted pleasure. At this time of year, our thoughts naturally turn to those who are no longer with us. At a lot of our dinner tables this year, there will be an empty chair where there was unbridled joy and laughter just a year ago.
Ruadhán Jones
Rory Fitzgerald
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly