Conspiracy-minded Catholics are up in arms online after claims that Pope Francis’ long awaited post-synodal exhortation was ghost-written by an old Argentinian friend. Writing at chiesa.expressonline.it, long-time Vaticanista Sandro Magister, whose press credentials were withdrawn by the Holy See last year after his involvement in publishing in advance a leaked version of the Pope’s environmental…
Gowran, Co. Kilkenny 1190-1610: Custom and conflict in a baronial town by Adrian Empey The middle class of Callan, Co Kilkenny 1825-45 by Pierce A. Grace Crime in the city: Kilkenny in 1845 by Fergal Donoghue (Maynooth Studies in Local History / Four Courts Press, €9.95 each)
A recent report on Catholicism may make for grim reading, but should be welcomed, writes Greg Daly
‘Opening the Door of Mercy’ is the theme of this year’s ‘Course for Parishioners’ at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome from September 5-9. The five days include a series of talks, liturgies and guided visits to significant churches and basilicas in Rome, a day of spiritual recollection and reflection, a pilgrimage to a shrine…
The relics of St Oliver Plunkett will visit the chapel of the Diocesan Pastoral Centre in Cavan on Tuesday, June 7, arriving at 10am, and will be available for veneration until 10pm that evening. There will be a lunch-time Mass in the chapel at 1.15pm offered by Fr Kevin Fay, chaplain to Loreto and St…
Priests and other parish workers should make time for parishioners, rather than erecting barriers, Pope Francis has warned. He said deacons, in particular, are called to be servants who set aside their own self-serving plans and are generous with their lives. A servant “is not a slave to his own agenda” but rather is always…
Holy See/university thaw is welcomed The restoration of friendly relations between the Holy See and the Islamic University of al Azhar has been welcomed by the Coptic Catholic Patriarch. Expressing a hope that the friendly encounter between Pope Francis and Imam Ahmed al Tayyib “will give new vigour to the processes of collaboration and integration that Christian and Muslim…
A Columbian bishop has offered the aid of his diocese in searching for a missing journalist. Salud Hernández-Mora, a journalist with El Tiempo newspaper, has not been heard of since May 21; military and police searches have found no trace of her. “We are very familiar with the territories, places and paths, we know the…
Consultant’s volte-face in Vatican court hearing A former consultant to a pontifical commission who denied to a Vatican court that she leaked documents about Vatican financial reform admitted to sending the documents when originally interrogated, a Vatican policeman has said. Stefano DeSantis, an officer investigating the matter, testified on May 24 that Francesca Chaouqui, one of five people on trial…
Heraldic Dublin – The Three Castles of Dublin: An Eclectic History of Dublin through the Evolution of the City’s Coat of Arms by Michael English (Four Courts Press for Dublin City Council, €29.95)
Greg Daly