Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Fr William Doyle SJ 3 March 1873 - 16 August 1917  This account of Father Willie Doyle's death in Ypres/Ieper, Belgium, while serving as a chaplain in the British Army during The Great War is from Father William Doyle S.J. by Professor Alfred O'Rahilly and taken from the blog Remembering Father William Doyle SJ . Fr Doyle was from Dalkey, County Dublin. Fr. Doyle had been engaged from early morning in the front line, cheering and consoling his men, and attending to the many wounded. Soon after 3 p.m. he made his way back to the Regimental Aid Post which was in charge of a Corporal Raitt, the doctor having gone back to the rear some hours before. Whilst here word came in that an officer of the Dublins had been badly hit, and was lying out in an exposed position. Fr. Doyle at once decided to go out to him, and left the Aid Post with his runner, Private Mclnespie, and a Lieutenant Grant. Some twenty minutes later, at about a quarter to four, Mclnespie staggered into the Aid P

François-Xavier Cardinal Nguyên Van Thuán Tomorrow is the feast of St John Mary Vianney, patron of priests. More than ever today we need holy priests. We priests need your prayers. One of the great priests of our time was François-Xavier Cardinal Nguyên Van Thuán  (1928-2002). Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly  I am conscious of the Church in Vietnam in a personal way because I am giving a weekly class to the eleven aspirants of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family here in Bacolod City. The group includes six young women from Vietnam, the first to enter the congregation. The Church in Vietnam has suffered greatly in modern times and harrassment is not yet absent, as the story of Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly , 64, shows. The Martyrs of Vietnam , celebrated by the Church on 24 November . In the May-June 2006 issue of Misyon , which I edit on behalf of the Columbans in the Philippines, I published an article by the Cardinal. Misyon was then a printed magazine. We are gradually p

Tigresa and Whitey, two of my three cats As a priest who loves cats I couldn't resist this story from the blog of Bishop-elect Thomas Dowd, soon to be auxiliary bishop of Montreal. I'm simply and shamelessly copying and pasting from his blog, Waiting in Joyful Hope . I don't know if he's distantly related to me. My maternal grandmother was Annie Dowd from County Meath, the 'Royal County' . Post for July 25, 2011 Christopher Curtis, in his recent article on me in the Montreal Gazette , includes this quote: “The job can be a lot of things. When I worked for a hospital, I was on call and you would get everything from a multiple victim car accident to a guy who is sick and needs you to feed his cat.” In case you were wondering about the reference to a cat, it is from an incident that took place on March 7, 2006. My older posts are still in archives for the moment, but I thought I’d fish this one out and repost it (with just a bit of editing to help it make sens

  Christ Blessing the Children , Nicolaes Maes, 1652-53 [I hope that this post isn't entering into the area of controversy that we have agreed to avoid here. I'm putting only the first part of it here, with a link to the whole post on my own blog. It's really a plea for prayer for the people of Ireland and that the Church there will be able to once again preach the Gospel with genuine authority, an authority it has lost.] 'It is hard going out on the altar these days after Cloyne and Enda Kenny clearly has read the national mood re Vatican etc . . .'  In an email from a friend who is a parish priest in Dublin and is much younger than I am. Three bishops have come out in support of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny's speech in the Dáil (Irish parliament) last Wednesday. Patsy McGarry quotes the bishops in an article in yesterday's Irish Times , Kenny reflected anger, says bishop . Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor, which includes Belfast and i

Holly's post yesterday, Today is a big day for Pope Benedict XVI , prompted me to post the video above. Father Aedan McGrath, featured in the video, loved gadgets and would have been thrilled to know that on the 60th anniversary of the bird's trilling during the ordination of Fr Joseph Ratzinger he, now Pope Benedict XVI, 'tweeted' . I'm still not sure what tweeting is all about and what part it has to play in genuine communication but I'm delighted that the Holy Father sees the importance of using modern forms of communication to spread the Gospel. There is nothing superstitious about seeing incidents such as the bird trilling at the Pope's ordination as a blessing from God. There are many stories from the lives of great Irish monastic saints such as St Columban(us), St Columcille (Columba) and many more that show how all of God's creatures have their part to play in praising him. And we mustn't forget St Francis. St Martin de Porres had the

A Columban ordination on the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul Saints Peter and Paul , El Greco, painted 1605-08 Earlier today I attended the ordination of Columban Fr Rodolfo Christopher Kaamiño IV in Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Ozamiz City. The ordaining prelate was Archbishop Jesus A. Dosado CM of the Archdiocese of Ozamiz. As a deacon Father Chris was working in Malate Parish, Manila, which the Columbans have been taking care of since we came to the Philippines in 1929. He will continue to work there as a priest for some months before receiving an overseas assignment. He spent two years in Taiwan as a seminarian on his First Mission Assignment. Among the five Irish Columbans in Malate killed by the Japanese in February 1945 during the Battle of Manila, when around 100,000 died, mostly civilians, was Fr Peter Fallon, the first Columban parish priest of what then was the town of Misamis, now Ozamiz City, when we came to Mindanao in 1948. The first bishop of the Prelature of Ozamiz