A presentation Brother died as I was preparing to write this week’s column. As in any family, when a member of a religious order dies there is a flurry of activity: the undertaker is called, arrangements are made, obituary details are assembled and a homily for the Requiem Mass is carefully penned. On this occasion…
Andrew O'Connell
Promoting vocations is a task for the laity
God has a great habit of surprising us, writes Andrew O’Connell
The Polish Pope who changed the world
Notebook with Andrew O’Connell
Re-founding religious life
Notebook
Being a Christian today can be tough
Hiding one’s faith is a challenging reality for many committed Christians
Measuring the ‘Francis effect’ on vocations
We shouldn’t overburden Pope Francis with unrealistic expectations
A church measured in millions
Pope Francis made headlines around the world last month after drawing a reported six million people to the closing Mass of his visit to the Philippines. It was hailed as the largest ever turnout for a papal event and, possibly, the largest gathering in human history. While it’s a little crude to focus on crowd…
The Church needs religious life
This year, there are two small but heartening signs of encouragement for religious life
The ‘Little Flower’ in the trenches
I had no idea that St Thérèse of Lisieux had such a massive band of devotees until the visit of her relics in 2001. A headline in this newspaper at the end of the tour’s first week reported that 100,000 people had turned out in the South East. I was travelling a lot that summer…
The deeper message of St Mel’s
After weeks of reading articles and watching programmes about it, I visited the refurbished St Mel’s cathedral in Longford last Sunday afternoon. Crowds were still pouring through its doors, weeks after the official reopening. The addresses in the visitors’ book revealed that many had travelled quite a distance to be there. That’s no surprise, the…