Search Results for 'Catholic Church'

THE SURPRISE of the year so far is Spotlight. Much like Room it is an uncomfortable topic that will be avoided by people but you should not avoid it (or Room for that matter). The film concentrates on the investigation run by the Boston Globe in 1999/2000, on the systematic abuse and ensuing cover-up by the Catholic church throughout the last century.

Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary has opened a ‘Holy Door’ at Knock Shrine as Catholics across the world have started to observe and celebrate Pope Francis’ historic ‘Year of Mercy’. The world’s media and tens of thousands of people gathered in St Peter’s Basilica on December 8 to watch Pope Francis open the Holy Door in Rome, a tradition that dates back to the 1400s.

Poor Irish women. The journey from Peig Sayers to Miriam O’ Callaghan has not been an easy one, and for many women simply unattainable. While in that time, men have found new confidence in the worlds of business, science, sport, teaching and the professions (even having the confidence to wreck the country in a spectacular fashion, as they did some years ago), women, in a patriarchal society, are still struggling to find their own expression, to escape the dominance of the Catholic Church, and, in the views of author Emma Comerford, ‘to control the tendency towards alcohol abuse and other manifestations of low self-esteem’.

Whatever about the discrimination against the Irish emigrants in both Britain and America as they fled the ravages of the Great Famine in the mid 19th century, the effect of gaining a foothold in the two major English speaking countries of the world, pretty much sounded the death knell for the Irish language. 

When Charles Dickens first visited the United States in January 1842, the popularity of his books was such that he was mobbed by adoring crowds, feted and dined as the major celebrity that he undoubtedly was, and was guest of honour at a famous Valentine’s Ball in New York attended by 3,000 of the city’s great and good.

Before Fr Peter Conway was appointed parish priest of Headford, he was a curate in Ballinrobe. His very considerable energies were thrown into building a new church and presbytery. He also succeeded in acquiring a site for the Convent of Mercy and Christian Brothers’ schools in a primary location in the centre of the town. And all may have been well, and the good father praised for his building and organisational skills, and allowed to live in peace, were it not for the Mayo general election of April 6 1857.

Ahead of his Out of the Whirlwind - The Shannon Tour, comic Tommy Tiernan took some time out to chat with me about the reasons behind the tour, Athlone, improvised comedy, and the purpose of stand-up in life.

I hope the recent scandals in the Catholic Church will not discourage the noble tradition of the cleric as the social champion of the people. It is time that we had their like to nail their colours to the mast once again. Growing up in the last century, I was familiar with such names as Fr James McDyer and his tireless campaign against the official neglect of Gleann Cholm Cile; and Canon George Quinn and his fight for better social housing. There were several others, who have spilled over into recent years, including Fr Peter McVerry and his fight for homeless people in Dublin, and Fr Harry Bohan and his belief in the staying power of families in rural Ireland. But the champion of them all, the priest with the soft voice and a twinkle in both eyes, was the indefatigable Monsignor James Horan. Not only did he re-design the village of Knock to make it more people friendly, he built schools, clinics, and a convent, and a vast basilica. He organised community water schemes, and forestry plantations, and built an impressive international airport in the bogs of Mayo.