David O’Hare “According to the World Bank, climate change could push as many as 130 million people into extreme poverty by the year 2030, wiping out many of the development gains lower-income countries have made,” said Caoimhe de Barra, Trócaire’s CEO. Ms De Barra says the effects of climate change are having a particularly negative…
If a person swears to God when he or she does not believe the Oath is devalued, for how can someone swear to God if they do not believe that God exists? Writes Barry Ward. Senator Barry Ward Article 34.6.1° Bunreacht na hÉireann sets out the Oath that every judge, appointed under the Constitution, must…
Fine Gael TD for Dún Laoghaire, Barry Ward, recently made headlines by introducing a bill to remove references to ‘God’ from the Judicial Oath of Office. In an editorial for The Irish Catholic, Senator Ward defended his bill, stating, “My attempt to amend this Oath is not one to secularise Ireland but to establish the…
Does loneliness affect your parish? A strange thing happened to me last month: three of the people I used to visit on my First Friday calls all went to the same nursing home, within a few weeks. That meant that my call list in one of my church areas was instantly reduced to zero. The…
A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar’s Mandalay-Sagaing region March 28, causing widespread destruction and a rising death toll. As of March 29, at least 1,000 people had died in Myanmar, with hundreds more missing. The death toll may surpass 10,000 according to US Geological Survey’s estimates. In neighbouring Thailand, Bangkok city authorities said so far six…
A recent analysis of U.S. survey data found that children bring ‘high levels of happiness’ to activities like mealtimes, socialising, and traveling. Ken Burchfiel of the Institute for Family Studies analysed American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, showing that everyday activities are more enjoyable when children are present. He noted that a 2013 Time article…
Fr John Harris Growing up we often sang the song ‘Take me up to Monto’, never thinking it was a real place. But a very real place it was. For over a hundred years it was said to be the largest red-light district in Europe. It is said that there was anything up to 1,600…
Paul Durcan at 80edited by Niall McMonagle, with an introduction by Colm Tóibín (Harvill Secker, £16.99 / 19.99hb) Thomas McCarthy Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944 into a legal family with Co. Mayo connections. Educated at Gonzaga and UCC, he has become the leading poet of his generation, a former Ireland Professor of…
Fr James Goodwin 2025 has been declared by Pope Francis as a jubilee year. But what does that mean? What is a jubilee? How do we celebrate it? The roots of a jubilee year are found in Scripture. As described in Leviticus 25, every 50th year was to be celebrated as a jubilee year…
Editorial In his Prison Journal, Cardinal George Pell offers a sobering yet steadfast reflection on the state of the Catholic Church, particularly in Australia and the West. His observations, written in the solitude of his prison cell, are not those of a man bitterly lamenting the Church’s struggles but of one who sees hope in…