Way back in the early years of this century, God help us, Christians’ major worry was the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as the new atheists were dubbed. Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens all wrote influential books although they also gained traction through the smartphone revolution that allowed easy mass access…
The United States is in the midst of a three-year Eucharistic Revival from 2022 to 2025, with four pilgrimage routes from right across the country culminating in a National Eucharistic Congress in mid-July. One of the inspirations for the Eucharistic Revival was a dispiriting 2019 poll from the highly regarded Pew Research Centre, which found…
Pope Francis addressed engaged couples on St Valentine’s Day ten years ago. He gave his now-famous advice regarding the need to say, please, thank you and I’m sorry. He went on to say, “We all know that there is no such thing as a perfect family, nor even the perfect husband or the perfect wife. We…
The Irish Dominicans are celebrating 800 years in this country. They arrived a mere eight years after the founding of the Order and just three after the death of St Dominic. At the time of writing, the seventh most popular article on The Atlantic website is about wisdom to be gleaned from great Dominicans. (The…
Recently in The Irish Catholic, Fr Niall Leahy SJ mentioned the desire to focus on ministry to young people as one of the reasons that Gardiner Street would no longer function as a parish within the Archdiocese of Dublin. The Jesuits are to be commended for taking this step as young adults are so neglected…
At John Bruton’s funeral in February, the homilist, Fr Bruce Bradley SJ, spoke of how we live now in a rapidly secularising age. He said that is not all bad, pointing to the growth in confidence, prosperity and diversity that the country has experienced. Nonetheless, something has been lost. Fr Bradley cited Seamus Heaney’s comments…
Most parents and grandparents will be horrified at the recent headlines declaring that almost a quarter of six-year-olds have their own smartphones. Given the prevalence and ease of access to internet porn, this seems crazy. Some 30 years ago, a friend was horrified when her daughter was conducting an internet search for pictures of the…
Lots of people feel down in January. ‘Blue Monday’, or the third Monday in January, is often called the most depressing day of the year. However, Blue Monday was an invention of someone called Cliff Arnall, who created it as a publicity stunt for a travel agency. In the way of the internet, which manages…
For the first time ever, this year some of my second level students queried whether we should be singing, ‘O Come Emmanuel, the great Advent hymn. The reason? It refers to Israel, and in particular, to ransoming captive Israel. Students politely explained that they do not support Israel’s action in Gaza and as a result,…
With little else in the news aside from wars and rumours of wars (Matthew 24:6), along with murder trials and extreme weather events, I freely admit to seeking escapism when I went with my husband, youngest son and his friend, Jacob, to see The Miracle Club, directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan. The fact that The Miracle…