It started, I think, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. She’s an actress and he’s the front man for the band Coldplay. When these two people, who were married for 10 years, parted in 2014, they announced their split ‘consciously uncoupling’ ... not separating or divorcing but ‘consciously uncoupling’. This linguistic creativity continued last week…
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Bird Brains
Leading Article in THE TIMES, 30 October 2019 We like to think of the robin as a quintessentially British bird. It has twice been voted the nation’s favourite and has posed its way on to countless Christmas cards. Yet the redbreast pottering about your garden could well have flown there from abroad. For the first…
Explainer: When can someone be denied the Eucharist?
By James T Keane in 'America', The Jesuit Review, 30 October 2019 Have the “wafer wars” returned? The recent news that former Vice President (and current presidential candidate) Joseph R. Biden was denied Communion at a Catholic church in South Carolina suggests that a neuralgic issue for Catholics has once again reared its head: When…
Homily, 30th Sunday C 2019
Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating his Christmas pie; He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said 'What a good boy am I!’ For the second Sunday running our Gospel contains Jesus’ teaching on prayer. Last Sunday he encouraged us to be persistent in placing our needs before God.…
Homily 29th Sunday of the Year C 2019
We have just heard Jesus tell a story about a widow who kept on nagging a judge until he heard her appeal for justice over a wrong done to her. To appreciate what she achieved and why Jesus chose her as an example, we need to be aware of what this widow was up against.…
Childless elderly are abandoned to their fate
From Jenni Russell in THE TIMES, 24 October 2019 Early this summer one of my friends caught a train to see her increasingly difficult and distant father. He is a proud and independent man in his eighties, a former successful businessman who has been living alone since his divorce 20 years ago. For months he…
The DUP’s answer is always the same: no
From Daniel Finklestein in THE TIMES, 23 October 2019 We have all been trying to find something in Brexit that can unite us, heal us, bring us all together. We haven’t done too well so far. But I’m excited to say that I think I’ve found a contender: we can all agree that we have…
Bishop Byrne: Newman would be surprised to be canonized a saint
From the Catholic News Agency by JD Flynn Vatican City, Oct 14, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Cardinal John Henry Newman would be surprised by his own canonization as a saint, an English bishop said Monday, adding that Newman’s life offers an important witness of holiness for contemporary Catholics. “I am sure that no one would…
A tribute to Cardinal Newman on the occasion of his canonisation by HRH The Prince of Wales
Priests arrive in procession for the canonisation Mass for Newman and four other saints celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican When Pope Francis canonises Cardinal John Henry Newman tomorrow, the first Briton to be declared a saint in over forty years, it will be a cause of celebration not merely…
Homily, 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Today's homily comes from Fr Ronald Rolheiser, a Canadian priest, theologian and writer on spirituality. Here he reflects on the question put to Jesus in today's Gospel: 'Lord, increase our faith'. Several years ago, I was at a symposium at which we were discussing the struggle that many young people have today with their faith.…
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