A few months ago, when speaking to a fellow priest about my chaplaincy at St Patrick’s College, he asked me if I had been speaking to the boys about priestly vocations. The promotion of vocations was certainly behind much of my efforts in regards to the College, but I...
In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis, Pope St John Paul II dealt with the matter of “The Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day.” Towards the end of that document he said this: Every aspect of priestly formation can be...
Many lay people active in campaigns to limit or ban abortions, complain they are met with resistance by their parish priests in attempts to publicise or gain support for such projects as walks for life, prayer vigils to end abortion, campaigns to pressure politicians...
The Church is the mother of our faith because she generates us, she nourishes us, she strengthens us in the faith (Lumen Gentium, n. 6-7). Saint Cyprian affirms: “One can not have God as Father who does not first have the Church as mother.”{{1}} And he adds: “we are...
It is fitting that we gather as priests from across the Anglophone world to pray and confect the Eucharist together in the ancient Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Its origins are obscure, but certainly very early. Tradition claims that this was the first church...
“The Magi, seeing the star, said to each other: this is the sign of a great King: let us go and seek Him, and let us offer Him gifts, gold, incense and myrrh.” — Antiphon to the Magnificat. Dear brothers in the priesthood, deacons, and brothers and sisters of the lay...