Coming up to your first Holy Communion usually you will receive your very first pair of rosary beads. While you may pick up more sets of rosary beads as you grow up, the ones you receive on your Communion day are beads that you will carry with you for life. Therefore it is important to…
Dear Editor, I notice that, while The Irish Catholic is now featuring a great number of advertisements, the Letters Page is more frequently missing. Do you plan to restore the Letters Page? I can assure you that it is very popular – and much missed by your readers. Yours faithfully, Isabella Corr, Greyabbey, Co. Down
Dear Editor, Great prominence and praise is rightly given by the media to Pope Francis’ visit and care to refugees in Lesbos. Our Irish bishops could be more supportive of the leadership of the Holy Father in this vast humanitarian crisis. I wrote to the hierarchy some weeks ago suggesting that vacant religious convents and centres could…
The Sisters of Bon Secours are an international religious congregation of Catholic women based in seven countries who bring to the world “Good help to those in need”. The congregation was founded by a group of 12 women, led by Josephine Potel, who came together in Paris in 1824 to nurse the sick and the…
Mags Gargan speaks to Pallottine students about their decision to join the priesthood 2016 is a year of celebration for the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers in Ireland. Two of their six students, Charles Lafferty from Co. Derry and Liam O’Donovan from Co. Kilkenny, will be ordained deacons in June and two more, Rev. Brendan McCarrick…
Sr Julie Buckley SMR had a successful career in nursing and a boyfriend who wanted to get married. She says becoming a religious sister was the last thing on her mind and yet she joined the Marie Réparatrice Sisters in 1991 and has “never regretted one minute”. The Marie Réparatrice Sisters were founded in the…
“If the Church cannot give life to families, she herself has no future” Fr Bernard Healy Much of the commentary about Amoris Laetitia will focus on the care of those in ‘irregular unions’. It seems a shame that the ‘hot button issues’ will take attention away from a vision that could be genuinely revolutionary in…
Mags Gargan talks to the Director of Vocations Ireland about how religious life is once again finding its voice Religious life is changing, and has to change, but the call from God will always remain, and it is the role of Vocations Ireland to help people to discern that call. Vocations Ireland is an umbrella…
“What must be borne in mind is the fact that daily Mass is a (praiseworthy) devotional exercise”, writes Editor Michael Kelly Chaplains at universities and other third level institutions in the Republic were getting it in the neck this week. Atheist Ireland – a body which, oddly, seeks to present itself as the representative organisation…
Bishop Kevin Doran has announced his intention to establish a Diocesan Council for Marriage and the Family. The Bishop of Elphin told The Irish Catholic the idea for such a council “arises particularly at the moment because of the need to engage in some form of pastoral response following from the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia…
Erin Fox
Mags Gargan
Michael Kelly