In respect of denominational schools, Education Minister, Richard Bruton is following in the path of his two immediate Labour predecessors, Jan O’Sullivan and Ruairi Quinn. That is to say, he is investigating ways of reducing the influence of the Churches over our education system, especially at primary school level. That influence, it should be said…
About 10,000 people are expected to attend the annual Galway Solemn Novena which began this week and runs until Tuesday, February 21 at Galway Cathedral with a focus on ‘Mary, Icon of God’s Mercy’. Redemptorist Novena Director over the past six years Fr Brendan O’Rourke said many come to the novena “searching, maybe for meaning, or…
Pakistani legislators have moved to curb lynchings and mob violence against minority communities via a bill amending a number of criminal laws. Under the reforms passed by the National Assembly, sectarian violence and forced conversions are outlawed while the deliberate use of words to hurt religious feelings, already an offence punishable by a year in…
Nizar al-Qassab, an Iraqi Christian refugee from Mosul, gets a kiss from his children as they prepare to depart from Beirut international airport en route to the United States. The US bishops have welcomed an appeal court’s decision to overturn President Trump’s ban on travellers from seven nations. Photo: CNS
“No-one wants them.” Across the plethora of reporting of the plight of Myanmar’s tortured Rohingya community, no single phrase summed up the plight of a people so precisely as that employed by Pope Francis on February 8. During his weekly General Audience, the Pontiff chose to make the despised Muslim minority community the subject of…
The concept of successful or optimal ageing has become part of the lexicon of modern day geriatrics and encompasses maintaining in as far as is possible our cognitive, physical and mental health as we grow older. Despite this, cognitive function which is crucial to healthy ageing declines significantly in many older adults. Indeed, few conditions…
I think the dog is putting a challenge up to me. I’ve written about Roise before, how she joins in with us when we pray the Angelus. As we respond to the prayers, Roise makes a strange, sing-song baying sound. She’s a pack animal and we are her pack so she wants to join with…
Nicole O’Leary Nicole O’Leary describes how students in Portlaoise benefit from the John Paul II Awards As part of being a CEIST school, 5th and 6th year students from Scoil Chríost Rí, Portlaoise, participate in the John Paul II awards annually. Girls in our school from all walks of faith come together to rejoice and…
Fences (12A) ‘Good fences make good neighbours’, wrote Robert Frost. The present – heavily symbolic – film re-writes that epithet to read, ‘some people build fences to keep people out and other people build them to keep people in’. Based on August Wilson’s Pulitzer pize-winning play of the same name, it deals with the efforts…
Three Indian cardinals have brought the case of Fr Tom Uzhunallil, the Salesian kidnapped in Yemen in March 2016, to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, Cardinal George Alencherry and Cardinal Oswald Gracias urged Mr Modi to do all in his power to seek the release of the Indian priest, who appeared weak…
David Quinn
Courtney McGrail
Dr Kevin McCarroll
Bairbre Cahill
Aubrey Malone