Sean Walsh

Collegio Sant Isidoro, Via degli Artisti, 41, Roma 2. Dear Michael, An assurance has settled upon me since last I wrote – the assurance that I have arrived, made it, got there.  Realising that I am a priest is not at all as easy as I had imagined: for days on end after ordination I found myself coming up with...

CONCLAVE, the new, shorter, tighter, faster-moving version is now available on Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Smashwords.com etc. And all the better for my editing during the past several weeks – even if I say so myself! Set against the backdrop of the first Good Friday, the storyline is uncannily familiar – and relevant: the High Priest, Caiaphas, and his Inner Circle meet behind closed doors to...

(Carlo Carretto, an Italian monk who died in 1988. For many years, he lived as a hermit in the Sahara Desert.) How much I must criticize you, my church and yet how much I love you! How you have made me suffer much and yet owe much to you. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need...

 Master Class  So long ago?.. ‘Seems like yesterday. Even now I close my eyes and re-live, re-call the noise, bustle. clamour, the sights, sounds, aromas, the stunning coloratura of Rome in the mid fifties…   Rome.  Ah, yes. The Eternal City. Citadel of Pius the Twelfth, Pontefex Maximus. Rome of the Latin Ritual and the Strict Observance, of sanctity and...

Las Ramblas was something else! A never ending boulevard of shops, cafes, bars, restaurants, caged birds, floral displays… A brilliant violinist backed by a throbbing orchestra… Row upon row of vendors, noisy locals, incessant smokers… ‘Finishing line at the harbour.    To Montserrat – by vertical bus!  Up, up and up again! Don’t look out, Ann! Down! Beware vertigo!.. German...