St Patrick’s weekend brought a flurry of snow and religious programmes of varying quality, some related to the feast day, some not. On the Friday, BBC2 launched a new series, Pilgrimage – The Road to Santiago, featuring a bunch of celebrities doing sections of the Camino pilgrimage over a few weeks. It was enjoyable, took…
Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor has been elected as Vice President of COMECE at the 2018 Spring Assembly, which was held in Brussels earlier this month. COMECE, the Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, is made up of Bishops delegated by the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the 28 Member States of the European…
A key Vatican official has resigned today after mishandling a letter written by former Pope Benedict. Monsignor Dario Vigano, Prefect of the Secretariat for Communication, has faced sharp criticism this past week for blurring part of a photograph of a letter authored by the former Pope, and for also withholding another section of it to…
Episode 6 is a conversation between John Quinn and Peter Rigney & Dominic Perrem of Alpha Ireland, all about how Alpha can help create a parish of invitation. This podcast looks at how a culture of invitation is necessary for parish renewal, the importance of food in creating community, and why the Good News is…
Expectations are growing that Pope Francis will confirm his visit to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) at his General Audience in Rome this week. The WMOF icon is currently on its way to Rome and will be presented to the Pope, Wednesday March 21, by two Irish families: the Bushell family who…
Archbishop Eamon Martin has urged families to connect with each other, and is praying particularly for those whose family life has been broken by “distance, by disagreement or breakdown”. In his St Patrick’s Day message the Primate of All Ireland said he was delighted to link with the “family of the Irish” at home and…
Mary Magdalene (12A) Whatever we may say about the Biblical epics of yore, they exuded power. Even the run-of-the-mill (or should I say De Mille) ones. The problem with Garth Davis’ Mary Magdalene is that it tries so hard to be ‘authentic’ it sacrifices the iconic benchmarks of scripture to subdued sidebars. It’s a plodding film…
Polish Catholic leaders have condemned a new wave of anti-Semitism in the country amid tension over a government-backed law on responsibility for the Holocaust. Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno, Poland’s Catholic primate, called anti-Semitism “a moral evil and a sin”, saying attempts to divide people or pit them against each other “in a nationalistic context…
The Government’s strategy to tackle family homelessness is nothing more than an “outdated promise” and a “stack of press statements” according to Sr Stanislaus Kennedy of Focus Ireland. Describing last year as the worst year of homelessness in the history of the State, the leading campaigner poured ridicule on the Government’s response to the crisis,…
The new Bishop of Ossory has warned all Catholics that if they fail to develop a “culture of vocations” we will no longer have a Church. Dr Dermot Farrell, who was ordained as Bishop of Ossory on Sunday, said that although those in ministry have a role in promoting vocations, the laity have a crucial…
Brendan O’Regan
Colm Fitzpatrick
Chai Brady
Aubrey Malone