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…
KNA Archbishop Scicluna of Malta has warned against using the methods of the World Synod’s spiritual dialogue – an alternation of speaking and meditation without direct discussion – everywhere in the Church: “If, for example, I have to deal with financial experts for the audit of the Archdiocese of Malta, I don’t need to have…
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…
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.…
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%…
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…
Q: I’m a new mother in the middle of a divorce. I admit that I have never been a very good Catholic, but I still want my baby baptised in the hope that he will have a better relationship with God than I’ve had. My ex-husband and I share custody, and in many ways, he is…
The religious life and spirituality of the Carmel were clear and defining calls in the life of St John of the Cross. At eighteen, after finishing his studies in rhetoric and classical languages with the Jesuits in Medina del Campo, Ávila, Spain, he started his journey into the Carmelite order in 1563. Shortly afterwards, he…
On December 29, the Church begins a Jubilee Year, with the theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. Maybe this is not a bad place for us to spend a bit of time, this week, as we head towards the celebration of Christmas. There is a priest in Mayo that I have admired for many years – his…
The Catholic bishops at their winter general meeting have called for the Synodal Pathway which began in 2021 and which they called a “providential development”, to “now continue” and “pick up speed during 2025”. The Synodal Pathway was essentially on hold until the Synod in Rome ended in October, however Synodal maestro Cardinal Grech has…
Peter Costello
John L. Allen Jr.