“Lord, when did we see you hungry…?”

A guest post from a friend of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, Toni Pyke. Toni will be joining many from the Jesuit communities and wider afield for a peace pilgrimage of prayer and solidarity, walking from Milltown to the St Francis Xavier church on Gardiner Street Upper on Wednesday March 27, starting at… Read more »

Community Gardens – More than just food

A new community garden is opening in Clongowes Wood College. In time this project will yield not only a food harvest but a creative space where hands and minds can gather to create wonderful communities which thrive. In time, food may only be a by-product of the relationships and community which is formed.

Equal before the Law?

This article, by Fr Peter McVerry SJ, originally appeared Reality magazine in 2016. Eight years on and it is as relevant as it ever was. This week Ireland was told to shore up corporate tax laws to prevent wealthy from committing tax fraud and evasion. At the same time, we are rapidly expanding our prison… Read more »

Can I Get a Witness?

At a recent meeting with Jesuits I was asked a great question: If you could only save three passages of Scripture, which would you select? I walked around Dublin after this conversation, mulling over different texts. I know most people these days have only a vague knowledge of the bible. But one of the great… Read more »

Plan with Dignity

Land use requires a juggling act of different needs. Offices, housing, parking, green space, retail, transport and schools all vie for the same spaces.

The Upcoming Referenda are not Making Environmental Proposals

Environmental politics are heating up. Over the last year, we have observed a backlash to the “Green wave” across the continent. Whether it is farmers in the Netherlands or France or coal workers in Poland, long-forgotten pop stars in the UK, or Irish aviation billionaires, there are increasing signals that large numbers of citizens are… Read more »

An emaciated dog sifts through the destruction in Gaza.

War is an Environmental Issue

The conceptual heart of Pope Francis’ groundbreaking environmental manifesto, Laudato Si’, is his idea of integral ecology (§139): We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Environmentalism can never be reduced to some idea of “nature” but it… Read more »

Prison Overcrowding: Between Two Visits of Committee for Prevention of Torture

Fast forward five years, what are the CPT likely to find in relation to overcrowding when they visit Ireland later in 2024? In April last year, there were almost 200 prisoners on mattresses on floors, five times what the CPT experts found in 2019. During the summer, the Inspector of Prisons wrote specifically to the Minister for Justice in relation to these “degrading conditions” as mattresses were adjacent to toilets. By any criteria of inspection, the experience of imprisonment by many will have greatly deteriorated in the interim period.

Road Safety Through the Eyes of our School Children

Introduction We are in the middle of multiple crises. The lives lost and absolute devastation caused by senseless wars in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as the increasing hostilities towards those seeking refuge in our country, can leave one feeling numb. When so many lives are lost, when there is so much anger and resentment,… Read more »

Photo by Saikiran Kesari on Unsplash

Climate Denial is Bad Religion

Becoming Someone’s “Hate-Watch” Many of us are familiar with the habit we can fall into of spending time on things that we hate. For whatever evolutionary reason, we are drawn to things that generate a strong reaction in us and so while there is nothing better than sitting down to read the new book from… Read more »