Fr Benedict Kiely, Author at Catholic Herald

Fr Benedict Kiely

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A former underground priest looks back at 1968

February 27, 2020

From the Underground Church to Freedom By Tomáš Halík University of Notre Dame Press, 374pp, £39.50/$35 At one point in this autobiography, the Czech priest Mgr Tomáš Halík reminds his readers of the reverence the early Church paid towards those who had suffered for the faith. Meeting them, fellow Christians would kiss their chains and

Angels on the road to Beirut

December 05, 2019

On my last morning in Damascus, I was preparing to be driven back to Beirut – a three-hour journey, according to my driver Ahmad. The staff at the charming hotel in the Christian quarter of the Old City, close to Straight Street, where Ananias baptised St Paul, were nervous. Had I heard, they asked, about

The icon bringing hope to the persecuted

September 12, 2019

Many of us have become conditioned because of our history to think of Christianity as essentially European. “Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe,” as Belloc once declared. That modern Europe is the fruit of Christianity is a historical fact difficult to deny, despite the deliberate omission of that heritage in the EU’s

The harsh truth about Iraqi Christianity

July 11, 2019

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has several categories to define the danger of extinction that various species face today. Using a percentage of population decline, the categories range from “vulnerable species” (a 30-50 per cent decline), to “critically endangered” (80-90 per cent) and finally to extinction. In June Pope Francis announced his

Notre Dame is not, and never should be, just a museum

April 16, 2019

Much as already been written, even hours after the devastating fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, about the “iconic status” of the building, its value to world heritage and the fact, noted by Pope Francis, that the building was “an architectural jewel of collective memory.” It took, however, the quiet but thoughtful

‘ISIS brides’ weren’t brainwashed. Just ask their victims

March 21, 2019

Less than a year ago I stood in the ruined Old City of Mosul, standing next to the mosque where the Caliphate had been proclaimed by ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. There was a large hole in the roof, and the whole area around it had been bombed to rubble. Apart from the corpses of

The government’s religious illiteracy is making life harder for persecuted Christians

June 29, 2018

Nuns and priests from the Middle East have been repeatedly refused visas

The Cross ISIS couldn’t destroy

April 13, 2017

Returning to England after a few days in Iraq, it is the sound of broken glass and rubble, crunching underfoot in one of the many destroyed churches, that lingers in my mind. Just a few weeks ago, on my fourth visit to that beleaguered Christian community since the genocide began in the summer of 2014,

The Cross ISIS couldn’t destroy

April 13, 2017

A crucifix which survived the destruction wreaked by ISIS is becoming a symbol of the Iraqi Church's rebirth