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On May 7, 2019 Pope Francis said his own experts could not agree on whether women were ordained as deacons in the same way that men were in the early church. The Wijngaards Institute suggests that the Pope should consult documents in the Vatican library to clear his own mind on the subject.

Sean O’Conaill, in a recent letter to the Irish Times, questions that paper’s continued use of the term ‘Catholic Church’ as if that term is describing a unitary entity instead of a much divided reality. The Irish Times refused to publish the letter. It is published on this website (below) to access the response of our readers to the issue.

The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research wonders when Pope Francis’ Study Commission on The Women’s Diaconate (set up in August 2016) is going to report back and be published and if Cardinal Ladaria is right that it is impossible for the Catholic Church to ordain women to the priesthood or permanent diaconate.

Does Bishop Leo O’Reilly’s homily in Knock on June 17th, 2018, mark an important shift in the Irish Catholic Church’s thinking on the state?

Philip McParland sees a new kind of Christianity emerging, ushered in by Richard Rohr, Brian McLaren and others – a ‘spiritual path’ rather than a ‘belief and belonging system’.