We had a wonderful homily from our parish priest a few weeks ago. I’m not suggesting that we don’t generally have good homilies – but this one stood out. I went to Fr Brian after Mass to thank him for what he’d said and laughing, he responded, “It wasn’t the homily I had prepared at…
The presence of an “ad hoc Door of Mercy” was a huge surprise to the thousands who visited the Divine Mercy Conference in the RDS, Dublin last weekend. Praising Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s decision to allow the conference a temporary holy door, Don Devaney told The Irish Catholic “the Holy Door had a continuous queue, with…
The Church teaches that reconciliation with God is the purpose and effect of the sacrament, writes Cathal Barry The whole power of the Sacrament of Penance, according to the Church, consists in restoring the faithful to God’s grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship. Reconciliation with God, the Church teaches, is thus…
The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has expressed mixed feelings about the joint declaration by Pope Francis and Moscow’s Patriarch Kiril. “In general it is positive,” Kiev-Halych’s Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said in an interview, highlighting how the declaration raised questions of mutual concern to Catholics and Orthodox, and opened new perspectives for cooperation. “However,“…
American Catholics should take the lead in fighting “the scourge of anti-Islamic prejudice”, a US bishop has said. Speaking against the backdrop of the US’s first Catholic-Muslim National Dialogue, San Diego’s Bishop Robert McElroy warned that the US is witnessing “a new nativism”, which, he said, “the American Catholic community must reject and label for…
An Irish missionary based in the Philippines has described the homophobic comments of Filipino world boxing title holder Manny Pacquiao, as “deplorable”. Irish Columban missionary Fr Shay Cullen, who has lived in the Philippines for over 40 years working with street children, said the boxer’s remarks that “If men mate with men and women mate…
St Philomena’s parish in Palmerstown, Dublin 20 is hosting a Lenten parish retreat from Friday, February 26 to Sunday, February 28 under the theme ‘Renewing ourselves in God’s loving company’. Starting on February 26 at 7.30pm Mass guest speaker Eileen O’Brien will discuss ‘Praying to God dwelling in the depths of your heart’. On February…
Over 200 young people are expected to attended a festival of faith next month hosted by the Office for Evangelisation and Ecumenism in the Archdiocese of Dublin. The idea behind the ‘Faith Fest’ in Clonliffe College came from four parish pastoral workers who had seen the success of the Youth Space at the Eucharistic Congress…
Three issues are discernible as agenda items in the new Dáil; educational patronage, divorce and abortion, writes Martin Mansergh It would not be every day that I would be invited to attend a religious ceremony in St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford. Last month, the Ireland 2016-Longford Committee sponsored an ecumenical service with Fr Tom Murray “to…
“interesting conversations” dominated this week’s viewing, writes Brendan O’Regan It was a week of interesting conversations. There was that meeting of two of Ireland’s best known ‘Grumpy Old Men’, George Hook and Vincent Browne on The Right Hook (Newstalk), Tuesday of last week. They knocked strips off each other as they cranked up the crankiness,…
Bairbre Cahill
Greg Daly
Cathal Barry
Mags Gargan
Dr Martin Mansergh
Brendan O’Regan