Karl Burns

Today, for the first time in centuries, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was prevented from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, having been stopped and turned away by Israeli Police.

For the medieval church, March 25 was the most important date in history: not only the day of Christ's conception, but also the historical date of the Crucifixion. From the eighth day of Creation to the downfall of Sauron, it all happens today. aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2017/03/our-la…

An absorbing read: Seán Lemass : The Lost Memoir. @RMcGreevy1301 Lemass, our greatest Taoiseach, at his most candid - highly recommended read. #books

At @CatholicEdWA Msgr Nestor Hall. He was born near Dunmore, Co Galway, studied at @stjarlaths. Seminarian for @tuamarchdiocese @StPatsMaynooth suffered tuberculosis, quit. Ordained from All Hallows for USA, refused visa, becomes @PerthCatholic first Director @CatholicEdWA

This is a superb biography of the former UK PM @GordonBrown by @James_Macintyre . Can one imagine in this crazy political atmosphere that a PM would privately act as a volunteer in a hospice during their holidays? A highly recommended read. #books

The Scottish assisted suicide bill is defeated! 57 to 69. This is a great day for human dignity in Scotland but also everywhere in the world.

'St Patrick, Apostle of Ireland', Richard King (1952)

Sad to hear of the death of Dolores Keane this St Patrick’s Eve. May she enter the Tower of Song. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.

In a 2004 debate "Pre-political Moral Foundations of a Liberal State" w Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Habermas conceded secular society lacks the moral energy to sustain itself & needs to translate the deep, ethical insights of religion or risk a hollowed-out public square

Today in 1846, a village in east Galway vanished. Ballinlass was a small settlement near Mountbellew in County Galway. Its sixy-odd cottages stood along a patch of land reclaimed from bog by the labour of the people who lived there. Many of the tenants were regarded as comparatively prosperous by the standards of rural Ireland. The eviction was ordered by the landlord, Marcella Gerrard, owner of roughly 7,000 acres in the district. The village stood where she wished to establish a grazing farm, as cattle, were more profitable than people. The tenants were not in arrears. Many had their rents ready to pay. That fact meant nothing in the legal world of nineteenth-century landlordism. Ireland in 1846 was part of the United Kingdom, governed from London, and the law of property rested firmly on the side of the landlord. At dawn a sheriff arrived in Ballinlass with a large police force and a detachment of the 49th Regiment under Captain Browne. Soldiers and constables spread through the village. The people protested. They pleaded to pay the rent that had been repeatedly refused. The work of destruction began. One by one the gaffs were dismantled. Their roofs were torn away and walls were knocked down. Gardens were trampled. Families clung to doorposts and dragged away what little property they could carry. Women wailed and children screamed. Men cursed helplessly as their homes collapsed around them. By the end of the day, around seventy-six families, roughly 300 people, had been turned out of Ballinlass. The newly homeless tried to shelter in the ruins of their cottages that night. The next day the police and soldiers returned. Even that miserable refuge was denied them. The tenants were driven from the ditches where they had begun constructing makeshift shelters of sticks and mud. Their neighbours were warned not to harbour them. News of the eviction spread rapidly across Ireland and Britain. The incident was so shocking that it was raised in the House of Lords by Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry. On 30 March he reported what he had discovered after investigating the affair. He told the Lords he was “deeply grieved.” Seventy-six families, he said, had not only been turned from their houses but had been “mercilessly driven from the ditches” where they sought shelter. These unfortunate people, he added, had their rents actually ready. If scenes like this occurred, he asked, was it any wonder that acts of outrage and violence sometimes followed? But sympathy was not universal. Only days later, the formidable lawyer and politician Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux insisted, it was perfectly within the landladys rights. If she refrained from eviction she was showing kindness, but if she chose to enforce her property rights the tenants must learn that the law stood firmly behind her. Property would become worthless, he warned, if landlords could not do as they pleased with their estates. Ballinlass happened at the very beginning of the catastrophe we now call the Great Famine. The potato crop had failed in 1845 and would fail again. Hunger was spreading across the country. Yet grain and livestock continued to be exported, rents continued to be demanded, and evictions continued to be carried out. The people of Ballinlass were scattered. Some drifted into neighbouring districts. Many likely emigrated. The village itself disappeared from the landscape, replaced by grazing land. Today, a memorial stands near the site of the destroyed cottages, listing the names of the families who once lived there. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

Bishop Erik Varden OCSO smashed it out of the park at the papal retreat today: “It is tempting to think we must keep up with the world’s fashions. It is, I’d say, a dubious procedure. The Church, a slow-moving body, will always run the risk of looking and sounding last-season. But if she speaks her own language well, that of the Scriptures and liturgy, of her past and present fathers, mothers, poets, and saints, she will be original and fresh, ready to express ancient truths in new ways, standing a chance, as she has done before, of orienting culture.”

@Pontifex has appointed Archbishop Francis as Bishop of Killala. Speaking at Saint Muredach’s Catherdral, Ballina, Archbishop Francis said, “For the first time, the Bishop of Killala is, at the same time, the Archbishop of Tuam, and in him both dioceses are united.”

The whitest rose 22 February 1943 - 21-year old Sophie Scholl is put to death in Munich for the 'crime' of distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. Her 24- year old brother Hans followed, then 23-year old Christoph Probst.

My Lenten read for 2026: Easter in Disguise by @liz_dodd …a challenging but very engaging read. #Lent #spiritualreading

10 years ago today, the world said goodbye to Umberto Eco, the celebrated Italian writer and academic who shot to fame with his 1980 novel The Name of the Rose. Here he is tracking down a book in his personal library.

Tomorrow, February 18th is Ash Wednesday. Now is a good time to ask God what He’s inviting you to do this Lent. Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving reveal to us what our heart truly desires – God . Don’t let Lent 2026 pass you by. Do something beautiful for God. #Lent2026

JUST IN: US civil rights leader ‌Jesse Jackson‌ has died at age 84. In a statement, his family said: "Our father was a servant leader - not only to our family, but ‌to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world."

Norwegian Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, who will run the Lenten Spiritual Exercises for Pope Leo, Rome-based cardinals and heads of dicasteries, wrote two best-selling books - one on the meaning of chastity, and the other “The Shattering of Loneliness," where he speaks of his own experience of finding Catholic faith as a young adult. He's a connoisseur of classical music - it was Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 -- “Resurrection” -- that changed his life. I interviewed Bishop Varden as Advent started, and here we go - now it's almost Lent! osvnews.com/trappist-bisho…

Don't give up the day job. No basis to this guff whatsoever; the saint happened to have an ancient Irish name, which may, or may not, be associated with a goddess, if such a goddess was, in fact, part of the Irish pantheon. St Brigid was a powerful woman. Know the difference.

Excellent post from Gillian, as always ... I am so tired of and bored with the utterly bogus, Victorian euhemeristic bullcrap that Brigit was a Goddess that I really can't be bothered responding to it this year ... Brigit is a pre-Christian Irish name, so is Cliodhna ...