Mary Kenny, Author at Catholic Herald

Mary Kenny

December 19, 2019

It’s often said that the Christmas we celebrate is the Christmas brought to us by Charles Dickens, and most particularly, the ever-popular story of A Christmas Carol. True to tradition, there’s a new television adaptation this year of the story of mean old Scrooge and his sweet-natured, poor young clerk, Bob Cratchit. We shall of

Divided? Yes. But there’s plenty of kindness and optimism in the UK

December 12, 2019

During the general election campaign, an American journalist from the New York Times paid an extensive visit to Britain, and reported back that he found a deeply divided United Kingdom. Many observations have been made along similar lines – it’s a theme with which we are familiar. But let me look on a brighter side:

For many Catholics, this will be a ‘none of the above’ election

December 05, 2019

I was a “conscientious abstainer” for the Brexit referendum in 2016; and if conversations with friends are anything to judge by, many Catholics in this coming election will be writing “none of the above” on the ballot paper in next week’s general election. “It’s really a situation of despair,” one old friend lamented to me.

A paragon of the old left

November 28, 2019

What many Catholics really miss in the current election is something like the Labour Party as it once was: caring about working people, the unemployed, the homeless and the poor, but also supportive of the family, the community and pro-life. Such a type of politician is the now retired Seamus Mallon, one of the most

Prince Andrew’s unanswered questions

November 21, 2019

Many people watching Prince Andrew’s television interview at the weekend will have been thinking of the impact on the Queen – watching the son she has always favoured in such a humiliating position. And then watching the reaction, which analysed the said interview as catastrophic, disastrous, a “car crash”, ill-advised and self-serving, accusing Andrew of

Britain’s angriest Quaker

November 14, 2019

The controversial historian David Starkey was raised in a Quaker family and, although he is no longer a believer, I think that Quaker background plays a role in some of his views about the military. Soldiers, he said in an election podcast, are neither heroes nor victims. “Today’s soldiers are volunteers. They are doing it

The pastoral challenge of the ‘gig economy’

November 07, 2019

Is swearing a moral issue? In the past, we were taught that invoking “the Holy Name” blasphemously was indeed an offence. But there are so many expressions of “Christ!” and “Jesus Christ!” in the public realm these days that it passes almost unnoticed. Christians are told it’s prissy to fuss and that there are bigger

Vietnam’s heartbreaking half-century

October 31, 2019

The reports of 39 people – now assumed to be Vietnamese – who froze to death in a lorry container coming from Zeebrugge, and found in Essex – has been hugely distressing. A friend rang me last weekend to say she couldn’t get the sufferings of those afflicted souls out of her head. Smugglers and

Britain, America and a desperate tragedy

October 24, 2019

Mrs Anne Sacoolas has been the object of some criticism in this country ever since it was disclosed that her car was involved in a head-on collision with a motorbike ridden by 19-year-old Harry Dunn, while she was allegedly driving on the wrong side of the road. Harry died, and his mother and father

The Irish border is already ambiguous

October 17, 2019

Fears are sometimes expressed that if Brexit goes pear-shaped, and the United Kingdom leaves the EU without a deal, terrorism could return to Northern Ireland. Some Irish news reports suggest that if a “hard border” appeared once again on the island of Ireland, the border posts themselves could be the targets of attacks by bomb

Newman’s consoling wisdom

October 10, 2019

What does John Henry Newman mean to ordinary Catholics today? His intellectual works, such as his great tome The Idea of a University or even the compelling Apologia Pro Vita Sua are not always easily accessible to the man and woman in the pew, such as myself. But there are two aspects of Newman’s earthly

Chirac’s funeral showed the media are more judgmental than the Church

October 03, 2019

There was a time when the Catholic Church might decline to bestow a full Christian burial on individuals whose public lives were judged to be less than exemplary. The French writer Colette (recently portrayed by Keira Knightley in the eponymous film) was refused a church funeral because her life had been “scandalous”. The lady herself would

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