Next week’s National Ploughing Championships offer the Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin a unique opportunity to “reach out” to the masses according to Bishop Denis Nulty.  “It is very important to reach out and for us to be in the field or in the marketplace,” Bishop Nulty told The Irish Catholic. “With over 279,000 people…

Some of the youth group taking part in the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes with the Diocese of Meath Michael Smith and participating clergy.

American television host and actor Mario Lopez has described Pope Francis as the “biggest star you could get” ahead of his trip to the US next week. The former Saved by the Bell actor said the Pope was “universally respected” and was considered by Catholics and non-Catholics alike as a “spiritual leader”. “He’s provoked conversation…

Lay visitation teams are setting out two-by-two this week to call to all the homes in a Co. Derry parish, in an initiative to reach out and welcome people back to the Church.  The aim of the ‘Big Invite’ is to offer a personal invitation to return to the Faith to the more than 80%…

Pope Francis is in “very good form” and while a papal visit to Ireland may seem unlikely for the moment, he continues to pray for the Irish according to the Bishop of Waterford & Lismore.  Bishop Phoncie Cullinan said it was “a beautiful, unforgettable moment” to meet Pope Francis last week while attending a course…

The Pro Life Campaign has said there is nothing reassuring about Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s refusal to commit to a referendum on Ireland’s constitutional protection for the unborn if Fine Gael is re-elected to government. PLC Deputy Chairperson Cora Sherlock said “The Taoiseach never actually said he was opposed to a referendum to dismantle the Eighth…

Fr Mike Shea, an Irish-American Redemptorist, has made an appeal for funding as more and more children orphaned by HIV/AIDS arrive at his orphanage in Thailand. Fr Shea, whose grandparents were from Ventry in Co. Kerry, is ministering to 145 girls and boys of all ages in Sarnelli House Orphanage, near Nong Khai. Thailand is…

Members of a campaign to stop the closure of the Dominican church in Drogheda have said a meeting with the Master of the Order in Rome has given them hope for the future. In a meeting with Fr Bruno Cadoré, Master of the Order and his personal secretary Fr Vivian Boland, the eight campaigners set…

At least one magazine is happy to follow Papal advice Would-be cutting edge stuff in the latest issue of The Phoenix, with the ‘Clerical Errors’ column taking a rusty scalpel to the timing of papal nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown’s August 22 Irish Times interview, risibly billed at the time as the nuncio’s “first Irish interview”.…