Dear Editor, I had a short review in Books of the Year in The Irish Catholic of Up from the Ashes [The Irish Catholic – December 12, 2024]. I just want to draw attention to how certain minorities in Syria are fearful for their security and very lives under their new rulers, the HTS. Before…
Notes in haste – An Irish Pastor writes is a new monthly series detailing the busy lives of Irish parish priests We ran out of hosts at Midnight Mass. Any priest in Ireland will understand what that would feel like. And it can happen so easily. We all know that the Christmas Eve Mass is…
The Irish Homeless Policy Group, a group formed by several organisations which work in the sphere of housing and homelessness, launched on January 7 at an event at Buswells Hotel ‘10 key actions on homelessness’ to be included in the next Programme for Government. According to the group, the latest figures show that a total…
Sr Hosea Rupprecht The Jubilee Year 2025 is upon us, and Pope Francis has asked that we all attempt to be “pilgrims of hope” to witness to the love and power of Jesus Christ in the world today. What does that mean in practical terms? How am I to be a pilgrim of hope to…
Rohith Kinattukara 2024 saw a great set of technological advancements that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Artificial Intelligence was the number one searched topic when it came to technology last year, with the likes of AI not going anywhere and the phrase “just ChatGPT it” becoming a very normal part of our daily…
Fr Joshua J Whitfield Through the liturgy of the Church, we are brought into intimacy with the Lord. Catholic worship always carries us there – to the real person of Christ and to his Passion. That is, it is no mere memorial what we Catholics experience in worship. Rather, the liturgy always brings us to…
The world’s oldest living person has been revealed – and she is a 116-year-old nun from Brazil. Sr Inah Canabarro, who was born on June 8, 1908, became the world’s oldest person following the death of a woman from Japan on December 29. LongeviQuest, an organisation that tracks supercentenarians around the globe, said the wheelchair-bound…
Sing in the Quiet Places of my Heart: The Life and Works of WM Letts (1882-1972), by Bairbre O’Hogan (South Dublin Libraries, €20.00 / £16.99); available through Alan Hanna and other retailers. J. Anthony Gaughan Winifred Letts is one of those many poets of the Irish Literary Revival, once widely admired, who lead a fugitive…
Scott P. Richert We… see all round us every day the living turning into the lifeless. What we never see is the lifeless turning into the living,” said Owen Barfield. When I was a child, I used to collect common fossils – trilobites, brachiopods and cephalopods, mostly. I was fascinated by their shape and symmetry,…
Carol Glatz When Catholics come to Rome for the Holy Year, their journey should have the specific goal of encountering and listening to Jesus, Pope Francis said. With a jubilee, the destination is the Holy Door, which “represents Jesus Christ, his mystery of salvation, which allows us to enter into the new life, free from…