Skin cancer is the commonest cancer worldwide accounting for about 30% of all cancer diagnoses and affecting 10,000 people in Ireland every year. The lifetime risk of developing skin cancer is about 15% in males and 10% in females, yet remains one of the most preventable cancers. The vast majority of skin cancers (90%) are…
Joyce Meyer Joyce Meyer shares actionable advice and encouragement on how to start enjoying the life God created for us “I’m just having a bad day.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people mutter those words (or muttered them myself). Traffic is backed up, you spill your coffee before you even get…
Classically, both in the world and in our churches, we have seen despair as the ultimate, unforgivable sin. The simple notion was that neither God, nor anyone else, can save you if you simply give up, despair, make yourself impossible to reach. Most often in the popular mind this was applied to suicide. To die…
Dear Editor, Your use of the word “cowardice” in your Editor’s Comment (IC 27/04/2017) in relation to the Church and the increased likelihood of a referendum on abortion in 2018, certainly struck a chord with me. It came during a week when Pope Francis had mentioned to us the case of a young mother in…
The Pope and the American president are surprisingly similar, writes John Allen Jr. Pope Francis recently met with the Vatican’s communications brain trust, urging them to use “a little violence, but good, good violence” in order to create new and more effective ways of getting the Church’s message across. If the Vatican really wants to…
The American Health Care Act the US House of Representatives passed by a four-vote margin has “major defects” according to the chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Social Development. Venice, Florida’s Bishop Frank Dewane said it was “deeply disappointing that the voices of those who will be most severely impacted were…
The Vatican is investigating the decision by a group of Belgian psychiatric care centres run by a religious order to allow doctors to perform euthanasia of “nonterminal” mentally ill patients on their premises. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, is personally examining the situation, according to Bro. Rene Stockman, superior general of the Brothers…
Welcoming the election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France, the head of the French bishops’ conference has said he hoped elections next month to the National Assembly will not place the country “in an ungovernable situation”. Elected last weekend with 66.1% of votes in the second-round presidential ballot, former economy minister and head of…
Ahead of his historic beatification ceremony, Mags Gargan looks at the life of Fr John Sullivan Ireland will host its first ever beatification ceremony this weekend, when Fr John Sullivan SJ will be named Blessed on May 13. (Up until the papacy of Benedict XVI beatifications tended to take place in Rome and the Pope…
Mags Gargan examines the continuing popularity of parish missions Parish missions were a common feature in the Irish Church up until about the 1960s and for many the idea of a mission brings up the old stereotypical image of a judgmental, hellfire preacher. However, parish missions today are a gentler, communal affair and while they…
Dr Kevin McCarroll
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
John L. Allen Jr.
Mags Gargan