Month: December 2024

In search of an anchor of permanence

As I was saying at the end of last week’s article, the turnout in the General Election was disappointing – 59.7%? Do we value our democracy enough? On Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) we heard from Art O’Leary, CEO of the Electoral Commission, pointing that one of the problems outlined was inaccuracy in the…

An exceptional showcase of Irish talent

I am grateful to Finghin Collins for keeping me up to date about the next Dublin International Piano Competition taking place from May 9 to 16 2025. The Irish preliminary rounds are scheduled for Friday December 20 at the RIAM’s Whyte Recital Hall beginning at 09.15am and concluding at approximately 5.30pm with the results expected around 6pm. Twelve competitors – Adam…

Surely we are not so miserly

Dear Editor, As I sit here tonight my wife is in the next room being treated by the palliative care team. She was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour and her life expectancy was estimated to be 3 or 4 months. I struggled for a few weeks trying to help her as she needed to…

Nicaraguan dictatorship kidnaps and expels another pries

Walter Sánchez Silva (CNA) The Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, this week kidnapped and expelled from the country Fr Floriano Ceferino Vargas, a priest of the Diocese of Bluefields.  Medardo Mairena, a former peasant leader now in exile, stated on X that “Fr Floriano Ceferino Vargas, parish priest of the…

2024 Books of the Year

The selected choices of our reviewers   Joe Carroll My choice is tripartite: Patrick Kavanagh: Collected Poems, Tarry Flynn and the biography of the poet by Antoinette Quinn, none of them new, but still to be found in the shops. On a visit to the Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen I picked up a new…

Pope’s ambassador: Lift sanctions against Syria

KNA The signals are positive: the Pope’s ambassador to Syria reports that the rebels are respecting religious diversity in the country. The Pope’s ambassador to Syria is relieved about the largely peaceful change of power in the country so far. In an interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Mario Zenari made an urgent appeal to the…

A view from the Quays

Fr Alan Hilliard   The book of Job is an amazingly insightful work which tries to understand the human condition and the possibility of God. He presents insights into friendship, family, property, money and death. In Scripture, we see him being stripped of all he owns and all he knows and is left with nothing.…

There may be hope for Syrian Christians

Amid the jubilation unleashed inside Syria and around the world by the fall of the Assad regime last Saturday night, one community in the country that probably isn’t in such a festive mood right now would be Syria’s Christian minority. Prior to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Christians represented roughly 10%…

Man’s response: Faith

By his Revelation, God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them. The adequate response to this invitation is faith. By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. To obey in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because…