Thomas O’Reilly A four-day visit to Belgium by Pope Francis acted as the perfect bellwether in what many regard as Western Europe’s most secular country as greater than-expected numbers flocked to see the Pontiff, dissuaded by showery weather and a last-minute attempt by political elites to dredge up abuse scandals. In the first papal visit…
Fr Patrick Briscoe OP When I think about the saints most beloved by modern Catholics, Padre Pio tops the list. His weathered face and brown Capuchin habit are iconic. His remarkable personal story, his strong-willed personality and the intensity of his spiritual life are absolutely captivating. But here’s the thing: I think most people get…
The Sunday Gospel Gn 2:18-24 Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6 Heb 2:9-11 Mk 10:2-16 or 10:2-12 Fr Joshua J. Whitfield As Eve to Adam in the purity of Eden, as bride to groom in the joy of a wedding: it is a primeval holiness, the holiness of a woman in love with a man in…
I believe the faith in Ireland is not dead. It’s like a bird in hibernation, waiting to awaken, says Anto Crossey It was November 2019, when Robert Nugent called 500 men to Derry. Like many others, I simply responded to the call, showing up that day without fully realising what lay ahead. The gathering was…
Michael R. Heinlein I’ve noticed a pattern lately. Whenever my 7-year-old son presents himself for Holy Communion to a minister unknown to him, he is routinely denied the sacrament. I find this fascinating. He does all the right things. He bows. He makes the sign of the cross. He waits patiently to say “Amen” before…
Laptop by Desmond Egan (The Goldsmith Press, € 20.00 / £16.00) William Adamson Desmond Egan once wrote that poetry is essentially a dialogue, an insight into the universal through the particular experience, and in his latest collection, Laptop, this thought is taken to a level of intensity rarely found in poetry today. The book itself is…
Bishop Robert Reed It’s that time of year, again, when the waking air has a chill crispness to it, and the hallways are lined with bookbags full of fresh spiral notebooks, binders still blank of the doodles of midwinter boredom and the good old marble-covered notebooks, as yet unsullied. Pencils have been sharpened, erasers are…
Jonah McKeown Letter from Rome Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, OP, archbishop of Vienna, said in a recent interview with a French Catholic magazine that in the face of rising secularisation and the growth of Islam in many historically Christian nations, Catholics should “trust in the work of grace” and remember that the Church is “an expert…
Last week, Pope Francis embarked on his 45th and most ambitious trip of his papacy, both in terms of distance and duration. It was a 12-day, four-country, two-continent odyssey; with stops in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore. The trip, which enabled Catholics in remote regions to see the Pope in the flesh prompted…
Hannah Brockhaus Pope Francis landed in Dili, the capital city of East Timor, on Monday last in the third stop on a September 2–13 trip to four countries in Southeast Asia and Oceania. One of the world’s newest nations — it became a sovereign state in 2002 — the majority-Catholic country is on a journey…