On Wednesday the Vatican announced that five people — four men and one woman — having been credited with the requisite number of miracles, are to be canonised.

Rose Martin looks at a range of books for reading and for giving as gifts over the holiday season, including Fiann Ó Nualláin’s latest work on mindfulness wrapped in the very practical Irish tradition of the seanfhocail

IT’S nearly 30 years since Albert Reynolds’s government fell over a controversy around the paedophile, the Norbertine Brendan Smyth. The intervening decades have been marked by one scandal after another, one excoriating report on child abuse after another.

Your letters, your views.

THE announcement from Education Minister Richard Bruton that the Government will press ahead with plans to divest patronage of Catholic schools is welcome, but that welcome must be tempered, as Mr Bruton has said he favours the development of state-run primary schools which will provide for preparation for the Catholic sacraments during the school day. 

4/5

WHEN, after several years of worldwide consultation, Pope Francis yesterday published Amoris Laetitia — The Joy of Love — he recognised that a code of rules cannot stand permanently fixed and remain relevant or even worthy in an endlessly changing world.

A letter by Fr Tom Kelleher (Irish Examiner, November 16) on the extensive influence of Saints Columbanus (Columban) and Gall (Gallen) was brought out for many to contemplate.

When England was being blitzed during World War 2, one of the main factors in maintaining the morale of the population was the strong, confident and decisive leadership of Winston Churchill.

St Stanislaus Kennedy, Br Kevin Crowley and Fr Peter McVerry are all Catholics who are known for their struggle for social justice.

PEOPLE of a certain age will remember, though many have deliberately forgotten, how strident some Catholic churchmen were in the pronouncements they made about issues that had little or nothing to do with religious life or faith.

ASH WEDNESDAY was the day when foreheads were marked with ash and the words ‘Memento, homo, quia pulvis es’ were said (or, in English, ‘Remember, man, that thou art dust’). 

Last weekend’s decision by Pope Francis to remove the conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke from his position as head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signature, the Holy See’s Supreme Court, signals a new, harder edge in the battle within the Vatican between those who would modernise the Catholic Church and those who would, as they see it, defend its traditions and truths.

There is a recognition and growing acceptance within wider society that human sexuality is not one-dimensional, writes TP O’Mahony

In a dramatic shift in tone, a Vatican discussion document has stated that homosexual people have "gifts and qualities to offer".

It is no longer sustainable to maintain laws that visit cruelty on the most vulnerable on the basis of one particular religion, writes Special Correspondent Michael Clifford

Irish attitudes to towards our lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, friends, uncles or aunts and other relatives and neighbours have changed dramatically, and very much for the better, since homosexuality was decriminalised in 1993, the year those celebrating their 21st birthday this year were born.

Following the near annihilation of the Labour Party and the substantial losses suffered by Fine Gael in the recent elections we have heard commentator after commentator on the national media identify water charges, stealth taxes, medical cards, etc, as the reasons for the collapse.

Catholicism has two new saints — Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II — and, almost uniquely, a great number of people will remember their pontificates.

It seems opposing abortion legislation is the only commandment the Church is concerned with, writes Michael Clifford.

The Fields

There can hardly be an Irish person, certainly not an Irish Catholic, whose perception of the institution of the Catholic Church has not been shaped by the child sexual abuse scandals and all of the shabby, criminal efforts made to cover them up.

RYE? Sourdough? Pumpernickel?”

Hundreds of Christians streamed through the cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City today, hoisting wooden crosses and chanting prayers to mark the crucifixion of Jesus.

The Catholic hierarchy hid for far too long behind the shield of ignorance when confronted by accusations of child abuse.

WHILE the full facts of the tragic case of Savita Halappanavar have yet to established, there has been no formal rebuttal of the claim by the dead woman’s husband that when he sought an abortion to save her life, the response given was that “this is a Catholic country”.

As strong as the Catholic Church may have seemed, one of the reasons for the Pope’s 1979 visit was worry over its decline, writes Diarmaid Ferriter

The Daylight Gate Jeanette Winterson

Graveyards for unbaptised children are scattered throughout Ireland. Now, towns and villages are reclaiming these lonely and forgotten burial places writes Carl Dixon

Thousands have gathered in the Philippines to witness devotees nailed to crosses as they mark Good Friday by re-enacting Jesus Christ’s suffering.

I read The Irish Examiner article: “Archbishop: Secularism not all bad for Ireland”.

The Census 2011 details published yesterday revealed a changed and changing Ireland. There are more of us — 4.58m, up 8.2% since 2006 — than at any time since just after the Great Famine.

Anyone familiar with the active evil uncovered by investigations into child abuse by Catholic clergy will have looked to yesterday’s publication of a summary of a report prepared by a delegation representing Pope Benedict XVI with some interest.

ONCE upon a time, they say, the citizens of Cologne did not have to work.

Allowing priests to marry would help ease the problems facing the Catholic Church, former bishop of Derry Edward Daly has claimed.

An estimated million young pilgrims braved searing heat followed by blustery rains in Madrid today to take part in a prayer vigil with Pope Benedict XVI, massing at a dusty airport field as the Catholic Church's youth festival neared its climax.

Frank Duff: A Life Story

NOW I have some idea of the thinking behind Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter’s tea party.

The Moral Landscape

MEXICAN-BORN artist Alma Lopez arrived in Ireland for the first time yesterday to be greeted with a storm of protest and controversy.

AS religious observation, or at least the observation of Christianity, declines all across Europe it seems inevitable that arrangements that once recognised the central position of religion in societies are being reviewed.