Jenna Marie Cooper Catholics don’t pray that souls in purgatory won’t wind up in hell, because hell is no longer a possibility for them. We do pray because we hope that, through our prayers and sacrifices, the sufferings of their purgation might be eased and their journey to heaven might be hastened. Let us recall…
Our paper’s headline last week, “Euthanasia committee promises fair hearing for concerned voices,” will have come as welcome news to many pro-lifers in Ireland who are tired and disheartened by the cold shoulder we’ve received from Government on the abortion front. Perhaps a few people read it, though, and wondered why there would be concerned…
It might seem an obvious thing now, what with so much talk about the environment and “going green,” but humans have taken many approaches to the natural world throughout history. Sometimes, even when we talked a good game, our actions belied that we viewed the created world as something to be plundered, used and abused,…
If you’re at all like me, the Easter Triduum through which we’ve just passed has proven confusing at some point. We’re told Christ dies on Good Friday, and three days later, he rises again from the dead. First of all, Friday to Sunday isn’t three days by our modern reckoning. Secondly, the space between Christ’s…
Questions of Faith When Christians petition God for things they want, atheists and sometimes fellow Christian’s bristle. Isn’t that treating God like a fairy godparent or a gumball machine – you make your wish or put your prayers in and out comes what you want? This is a good question, given that the Catholic tradition…
One of the things that most hinders the Church in its mission and makes people reluctant to interact with it is the real presence of sin in those who profess to be Catholic. Every person walking the earth is a sinner, but those who claim to be adhering to the heights of goodness, truth and…
This is a common refrain in our times: I’m definitely spiritual, but I’m not religious. Or again, I personally believe in a higher power or a god, but I wouldn’t associate with a religion. I’ve heard this line personally on many occasions, and I think it expresses the fact that many people are aware that…
If there’s one, unavoidable reality in our world it’s that of suffering. No matter how you try to buffer or shore up your existence, suffering will manifest itself one way or another. The only way to avoid it would be to neither love nor feel – but would such a life be any different from…
Questions of Faith Recent polls in the US have indicated that belief in Jesus’s presence in the Eucharist is at a historic low. A famous 2019 survey found that 69% of all self-identified Catholics said they believed the bread and wine used at Mass are not Christ, but rather “symbols of the body and blood…
A near age-old accusation levelled at the Catholic Church is that it encourages and actively worships Jesus’s mother, Mary. The same accusation is applied when it comes to saints – Catholics are accused of being polytheistic, essentially: of worshipping saints as gods, rather than God alone. The short answer to this is no, Catholics do…
Ruadhán Jones