KEVIN HARGADEN :: There are nearly 10,000 people homeless in Ireland but a vast amount of property left idle. When activists try to do something, the only official response is strong-arm disruption and arrests. So who are the baddies?

In 2017 the Jesuit Refugee Service served more than 630,000 people throughout the 52 countries in which they operate, according to their 2017 Annual Report

KEVIN HARGADEN :: The referendum campaign highlighted the persuasive power of experience and story. These are hugely important, but so too is a metaphysical sense of what it means to be human

The American Irish Teachers Association have announced that they will screen 'A Jesuit with the People', a short documentary about Michael O'Sullivan SJ

Read 1 Peter 2:4-12 When did secularity become ascendant in Ireland? Was it when pubs were allowed to be opened on Sunday in Northern Ireland, which only happened in 1989? Or was it when contraception was allowed to be sold in the Republic back in 1978? Was it when RTE’s first television broadcast began in 1961? Or was it the ...

Read Matthew 27:11-26 Throughout Lent, we have considered the complex meaning of “home” in the Scriptures. Home is both a thing to be treasured – a destination longed for by the pilgrimaging people of Exodus – and a thing to be forsaken – as Abram is compelled to walk away from one home in search of another. Our collective mythical ...

Read: Luke 15:11-32 The parable we consider this week is perhaps, along with the Good Samaritan, the best-known and most-loved of all Jesus’ divine yarns. There is, of course, no mention of the word “prodigal” anywhere in the tale. In fact, the earliest existing report of such a title came in the commentaries of St. Jerome (347-420), who, perceptively, talks ...

Read: Matthew 2:13-18 How rare it is that in the midst of the crass consumerism and sentimental spirituality that is modern Christmas that we reflect on the first people invited to visit the Messiah? The shepherds, bearing the smell of their sheep and filthy from the mountains, were impoverished, illiterate, and disrespected in their society. They are the first to ...

The Peter McVerry Trust sheltered hundreds of homeless people in what was the largest single mobilisation of emergency beds

Read Psalm 137 and Jeremiah 30:12-17 While “exodus” is a central motif by which to make sense of the entire Scriptures, “exile” plays a similarly large role. In exodus, the people of Israel leave captivity in search of home. In exile, the people of Israel were driven out of home, into captivity. Throughout these Lenten reflections, what we are doing ...