Easter 2013: library arrangements

The Central Catholic Library will close for Easter at 6pm on Tuesday 26th March.

The Library will re-open at 11am on Tuesday 2nd April.

Happy Easter to all our members, visitors and friends!

An Expert Look at the Church Fathers

St Augustine of Hippo at his desk

The second lecture in our spring series, coinciding with the Year of Faith, will focus on the pivotal place of the Fathers of the Church in helping to form and articulate the faith of the early Church.

The lecture takes place at 6.30pm on Tuesday 19th March in the library.

Our speaker, Finbarr Clancy S.J., emphasizes that, in a time where we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, we do well to remember Pope John XXIII's advocacy of returning to the sources of Christian tradition, as well as reading the signs of the times in the light of the gospel. The Fathers have always been a fertile source of inspiration for all that is best in theology and the life of the Church.

Fr Clancy is currently Professor of Theology at the Milltown Institute in Dublin, where he also serves as Rector of the Ecclesiastical Faculty and Acting President. He has also lectured on Patristics in St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He acts as Chairperson of the Patristric Symposium, an interdisciplinary group of scholars who meet regularly to discuss the Church Fathers and organise seminars and conferences on Patristic studies.

Fr Clancy has published widely on Patristic topics. He devoted two studies to the Church Fathers on the Eucharist in connection with last year's International Eucharistic Congress, held in Dublin. He is particularly interested in the Latin Fathers such as Cyprian, Augustine and Ambrose, and in the liturgical poetry of St Ephrem the Syrian. He lectures in Patristics, sacramental theology and systematic theology, and maintains a keen interest in ecumenical dialogue between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.

In tandem with the lecture, our honorary librarian Peter Costello has organised an exhibition presenting the work of the Church Fathers in word and image.  The exhibition can be viewed during library opening hours: 11am-6pm (Monday to Friday) and 11am-5.30pm (Saturday).

For those interested in exploring the thought of the  Fathers, the library holds a rich collection of Patrisitic writings,  including the ongoing series of new English translations published by the Catholic University of America Press.

Saint Patrick's Day 2013

 As Saint Patrick's Day falls on Sunday this year, and Monday will be a bank holiday, the library will be closed from 6pm on Friday 15th March,  re-opening after the weekend at 11am on Tuesday 19th March.

Enjoy the Feast Day, and the weekend!

Buongiorno Papa Francesco!

Yesterday, with white smoke after five votes, Argentine Jesuit Jorge Maria Bergoglio was proclaimed Pope Francis 1, to a vast crowd in St Peter's Square and to the world.

In his first apostolic blessing, Pope Francis noted that it had been the duty of the Conclave to give Rome a Bishop, and ironically they had gone to the ends of the earth to get one!

After offering a prayer for Bishop Emeritus, Benedict XVI, Pope Francis continued: " And now, we take up this journey : Bishop and People... A journey of fraternity, of love, of trust among us. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world, that there may be a great spirit of fraternity. It is my hope for you that this journey of the Church, which we start today...will be fruitful for the evangelization of this most beautiful city."

Before giving his blessing, Pope asked a favour of the assembled audience, saying "And now I would like to give the blessing, but first, first, I ask a favour of you : before the Bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their Bishop."

Pope Francis then gave his own blessing to all those in St Peter's Square, and to the world.

The 1913 Strike and Lockout

The first lecture in our spring series will explore the traumatic events of 1913 from the perspective of Dublin's Catholic archbishop, clergy and religious. 

Our speaker, Thomas Morrissey S.J., was formerly director of Dublin's National College of Industrial Relations. He has published over thirteen works relating to church and social history. 

His books include biographies of Archbishop William Walsh, the trades unionist William O'Brien and the journalist and politician William Martin Murphy; three figures active in Dublin during the 1913 strike. 

Fr Morrissey's lecture takes place at 6.30 pm on Tuesday 12th March.

Spring Lecture Programme

The four lectures in this year's Spring programme promise to be both  topical and informative. 

Our first speaker, on 12th March, will be Fr Thomas Morrissey SJ. In this centenary of the  1913 Dublin strike and lockout, Fr Morrissey will discuss the event from the perspective of Dublin's Catholic archbishop, clergy and religious. 

Turning to the Year of Faith, we will focus on the Fathers of the Church with a talk by Fr Finbarr Clancy SJ on how the Fathers continue to inform Catholic belief and practice. Fr Clancy will speak on 19th March. 

In tune with ongoing debates about the relationship between religion and science, Dr Don O' Leary of University College Cork will offer a presentation entitled "The Roman Catholic Church and Science: conflict or complexity?"  This talk will be on 9th April. 

And finally, on 23rd April, historian Patrick Maume will present his research on the founder of the Tablet, Frederic Lucas, and the ways in which Lucas reported on the Great Irish Famine. 

All four lectures will take place at 6.30pm in the library. 

At Work in the Republic of Letters

“And without letters what is life?” once asked the great sixteenth-century humanist scholar Erasmus, whose contribution to European literary culture includes biblical translation, works of devotion, educational texts, satire and social commentary. Originally from Rotterdam, his true home, as James McConica has said, was “the one he constructed with his pen”.

The image shows the first page of our copy of John Jortin’s biography of Erasmus, published in two volumes in 1758-60. The copy is in a rather orphaned state, lacking its cover and title page. The author and publications details were established following a lead from a publisher’s catalogue bound in with the text. The copy contains the original two volumes bound as one; badly bound, as one block of pages has been inserted in the wrong place.

Nevertheless, the sewn binding, the quality of the watermarked paper, and the layout of each page, all make this 250 year old book a pleasure to look at and read.

One of the interesting additions to the text is a two-page spread displaying samples of the handwriting of Erasmus and some of his many correspondents. The language in which they wrote to each other was Latin: also the language of Erasmus’s works. Jortin comments in the biography that Erasmus “...had spent all his days in reading, writing, and talking Latin”, and notes that “Erasmus, in the earlier part of his life, carefully studied the Greek and Latin grammar, read lectures upon them, and translated Greek works into Latin”. As a humanist scholar, devoted to the wisdom of classical antiquity, Erasmus saw Greek and Roman literature as part of God’s divine plan: its significance completed in Christ’s Incarnation as defined and explored in Scripture.

Erasmus signs the note by him included in the samples with “Erasmus Rott. mea manu”: a fitting signature also to the entire body of work from the hand of this dedicated citizen of the Republic of Letters.