Are rising levels of inequality, exclusion and the denial of participation a reason to protest asks Columban Fr Bobby Gilmore. History is made by successive shocks, of confronting and overcoming successive challenges. Societies progress, and in the end, having...
Fr Tim Mulroy recalls a difficult conversation with a Columban in the USA which provided some insightful Lenten lessons. During the months leading up to his eighty-seventh birthday, on several occasions, Fr Paul White had gone from the hospital to a rehabilitation...
St Valentine’s Day will see millions of love letters dispatched around the world. Fr Tim Mulroy recounts the heart-warming tale of one priest’s love letters. “I won’t be buying green bananas again!” was Fr Bernard’s greeting as I approached his hospital bed. He had...
We are who we are because of migration. Migration has created the world we are part of today, writes Columban Missionary Fr Bobby Gilmore. The immigrant has become a contemporary passion in Europe, the vacant point around which ideals clash. Easily available as a...
Fr Bernard McDermott examines why clericalism is a problem and who is guilty of it. As the synodal journey continues, I often get ‘feedback’ on the state of the Church from lay people, including members of my own family. Their comments sometimes question the lifestyle...
Bhí mé sa bhaile i mBaile Átha Cliath faoi Nollaig 2001, mé ag obair sa Bhreatain ag an am. Chonaic mé clár teilifíse faoi bhanaltraí ó Na Filipíní ag obair in in Éirinn ar RTÉ a chuaigh i bhfeidhm go mór orm. Cuireadh agallamh ar bhanaltra óg ó Mindanao – oileán i...
Captivated by an Infant’s Gaze In the old days there was a myth that new-born babies could not see for some time after birth. Now we know better: within hours of being born a tiny child is focusing its eyes above all on its mother. This helpless, vulnerable baby is...
Last Christmas Fr Frank Hoare took a break from life in the Fijian capital, Suva, to return to a rural parish where he had worked previously. But his attempt at Santa Claus did not get the reaction he expected. Maybe it was because I wasn’t wearing the required red...
Fr Sean Coyle/Seán Mac Cumhaill writes about finding his great-uncle Lawrence Dowd's grave in Flanders 84 years after he was killed in the Great War. He highlights the nightly ceremony at the Menin Gate to remember the more than 50,000 men, 5,000 of them Irish, who...
Fr Frank Hoare explains why Fiji needs interreligious dialogue and how Columban efforts are a small contribution towards working for peace in the world. On 14 May 1987, people in Fiji were shocked when the army overthrew the elected government in a coup d’etat. The...