Dear Editor,  The Irish Catholic (IC 05/09/2013) report titled “Irish parishes respond to Pope’s peace vigil call,” rightly drew attention to the massive peace efforts of Pope Francis and his pre-announced Saturday Rome vigil of fasting and prayer in respect of Syria. Pope Francis made an international appeal to Catholics, Christians, believers and all peace…

Dear Editor, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin recently criticised sections of the Catholic press in Ireland for a ‘growing tendency to tabloidism’. I presume his criticism is not directed at The Irish Catholic, which while supportive of the archbishop’s work on dealing with clerical sexual abuse, has also raised questions about the extent of his leadership in…

Dear Editor, I do not think that I can be alone in seeing the publicity surrounding Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s recent speech on the New Evangelisation in a New Ireland as being a missed opportunity. Whilst there is much of interest and value in the speech itself, drawing on the call of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict…

In this book Fr Hogan, now living in Cork after a life spent on the missions in Africa, continues his interesting investigations of the social, political and religious interactions in the early years of colonial Nigeria. The Ebira of his study maynot be so familiar a name as the Ibo or Yoruba are to many…

A sign of the changing times: this is a CD by a Connemara based priest, influenced perhaps by Eastern ideas, which allows listeners to become at home in themselves, and in doing so open up their spirit to wider influences. His insights are intended for both individuals and for prayer groups. There has been a long…

The allusion in the title is, of course, to the robe of Christ, but in these poems by the parish priest of a parish near Dublin, they might also allude to the seamless nature of life and spirit. Poets he notes write from what they know, and what a parish priest has is a very…

Majella is a familiar enough personal name in Northern Ireland, as Fr McConvery reminds us, and in past decades there was a wide spread devotion to him, especially in matters that concerned what the author calls ìthe great life- giving mysteriesî of conception, labour and birth. Though St Gerard (born in 1726 and died in 1755),…

Pope Francis’ September 11 meeting with Dominican Fr Gustavo Gutierrez was an informal one, held in the in the Pope’s residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, and not listed on his official schedule. Yet the news that Pope Francis had received the 85-year old Peruvian priest, who is widely considered the father of liberation theology, has…

"Despite their condemnation of violence, the Churches were not seen as neutral and above the fray. They were seen as part of the problem. This made it very difficult for them to be seen as part of the solution.”   That was John Brewer, Professor of Post-Conflict Studies, one of the foremost sociologists of religion,…