RECENT COLUMNS
-
Michael Pakaluk
-
Francis X. Maier
-
John M. Grondelski
-
Robert Royal
-
Brad Miner
NEWS
COMMENTARY
NOTABLE
Sacred Spaces
St. Peter’s Church (Peterskirche) Vienna, Austria
True Beauty
O Vos Omnes (Newman University Church, Dublin, Ireland)
RECENT COLUMNS
-
Michael Pakaluk
-
Francis X. Maier
-
John M. Grondelski
-
Robert Royal
-
Brad Miner
NEWS
COMMENTARY
NOTABLE
Mass and masquerade in Ireland
John Waters, First Things
Friday, May 28, 2021
Something bizarre has been happening in Ireland. On the one hand, the ban on public religious observance throughout the pandemic has seemed draconian. Whereas public worship has continued up the road in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland has been almost alone among European countries to persist with such a ban, leading to comparisons with the Cromwellian bloodbaths of the mid-seventeenth century and the Penal Laws imposed after the Reformation by the Protestant parliament. But there is also a doubt whether this ban actually existed throughout the pandemic in the first place, and herein lies the true story of Ireland now.