There has been remarkably little serious discussion about how Irish schools are supposed to respond to the sudden rise in children identifying as transgender. This is not something teachers were trained for, and it is not an area in which teachers’ unions or school management bodies have any real expertise. Yet schools have been left…
The Church of the future will only be vibrant if families on fire with their faith are willing to evangelise communities, Bishop of Derry Donal McKeown has said. He was speaking at the funeral Mass of Fr Eugene Hasson (70), parish priest of Drumragh, Co. Tyrone, who died after a short illness. Remaking on the…
For the respectful formation of young people, I reckon the three most important influences are family, schools and peers. It’s great when all three are good and aligned, disastrous if all three are bad. There is a lot of talk about ‘influencers’ today, especially the online variety, but parents and teachers were surely the early…
The scatterbrained, chain-smoking Helen (Claire Foy) is a rather unlikely Cambridge lecturer in H is For Hawk (12A). At the beginning of the film she loses her father, photo-journalist Ali (Brendan Gleeson). She deals with her grief by acquiring a wild goshawk as a pet – though she denies it’s a hobby, or that the…
Is 8:23-9:3 (9:1-4); Ps 27(26) 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17; Matthew 4:12-23 Jesus said: Follow me! Matt. 4:12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. Matt. 4:13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, Matt. 4:14…
When we were growing up, my mother always insisted that we didn’t discuss religion or politics at family gatherings. On asking her why, she would say that those subjects always ended up in a row. Of course, she had grown up in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, and politics had divided families and…
I was ‘today’ years old when I discovered what the trending hashtag #YOHO stands for. For those, like me, not fluent in the constantly evolving language of social media, #YOHO stands for awe and wonder — moments when something interrupts our momentum, catches our attention, and gently reminds us that life is deeper and richer…
New bishop outlines vision to refocus parishes The incoming Bishop of Raphoe Diocese (Donegal) Bishop Niall Coll wants to bring what he learnt from his experience as Bishop of Ossory to his new home diocese of Raphoe and that chiefly will be catechetical renewal at parish level. His installation as Bishop of Raphoe will take…
Dr Mary McAleese’s Irish Times column recently argues [an argument that she has been making since at least 2018] that infant Baptism “denies babies their human rights” because it enrols them—without their consent—into lifelong Catholic membership with binding obligations and (in her view) a “no-exit policy.” She ridicules the language of “renewing baptismal promises” (since…
Christmas 2025 saw packed churches around the country, as attendance has been increasing gradually since the pandemic, The Irish Catholic has learnt. Fr John Dunphy, PP Graiguecullen / Killeshin Parish in Carlow said they celebrated seven Christmas Masses in his parish and all of them “were overflowing”. For him, Christmas 2025 Mass “was certainly the…
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone
Renata Steffens