Paul KeenanThe North’s leading pro-life group Precious Life has submitted a massive 300,000-strong petition to Stormont urging legislators to keep Northern Ireland abortion-free. In a response to a recent petition on behalf of Amnesty International calling for abortion access to be extended to the region, which claimed 45,000 signatures, Bernadette Smyth of Precious Life joined with…
Month: December 2016
Archbishop Martin opens seminary for the ‘New Evangelisation’
Courtney McGrailStaff reporter Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh has described the opening of a new Irish missionary seminary in Dundalk, Co. Louth as a sign of the “New Evangelisation for Ireland”. Speaking as he officiated at the opening of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary last weekend, the Primate of All Ireland referenced the great legacy of Irish…
Easter Rising Documentary
A documentary examining the impact of the 1916 Easter Rising in Australia and on Ireland’s Archbishop Daniel Mannix, the then Archbishop of Melbourne, is now available on the RTÉ Player. Michael, They’ve Shot Them was filmed by a Melbourne-based Irish production company founded by Eoin Hahessy and relates how the Rising and its aftermath fed…
Abortion rate at historic low in the United States
The abortion rate in the US is at its lowest level since before the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision to broaden access to terminations, latest figures reveal. In its ‘surveillance report’ to the year 2013, the nation’s Centres for Disease Control (CDC) reveals that 47 states have experienced a 20% drop in terminations…
World Youth Day 2019
The theme for World Youth Day 2019 in Panama will be “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk. 1:38), the Dicastery for Laity, the Family, and Life has announced. This means that World Youth from 2017 will have Mary as a central figure for…
Vatican Roundup
More prelates intervene in Amoris Laetitia row The row centred on the Pope’s encyclical on the family, Amoris Laetitia, rumbles on. Following last week’s intervention by four cardinals seeking to question Pope Francis’ knowledge of Church teaching on the family, and the rebuke by the Pontiff and a subsequent invitation from Cardinal Blase Cupich of…
Hoping for ‘Cuba Libre’
Cuban expatriates hoping for a new chapter of freedoms in their country celebrate the death of Fidel Castro in Little Havana, a neighbourhood of Miami, November 26. Castro, who seized power in a 1959 revolution and governed Cuba until 2006, died November 25 at the age of 90. Photo: CNS
Fidel Castro, the communist leader who received three Popes
Inés san Martín Fidel Castro, Cuba’s communist leader who died on November 25 at the age of 90, was by far the most dominant figure in Cuba’s one-party state which he ruled with an iron fist for almost five decades before handing over the powers to his brother Raúl in 2008. A hero to the left across the…
Cardinals argue that submitting ‘dubia’ is not such a bad thing
Despite well-observed concerns in recent times about the effects of social media bubbles, the internet remains an incredibly empowering phenomenon. In particular, it allows us access to documents hitherto reserved to the few: anyone nowadays can in moments call up the Treaty of Rome to establish that freedom of movement has been a principle of…
Cultivating a sense of alienation
John Reid In a blistering editorial comment this week, the Irish Independent criticised the Catholic Church (which has patronage over about 90% of primary schools in the Republic) for its response to the current Government’s draft programme on education about religious beliefs and ethics, even suggesting that a failure to dilute or scrap the ethos…