Smoking and vaping have been added to the Confirmation pledge taken by young teens, which formerly only included a reference to alcohol and illicit drugs. Bishop Michael Router, Liaison Bishop with the Irish Bishop’s Drug Initiative, explained the rewording of the pledge on The Joe Finnegan Show on February 16, citing that the decision came…
Tuesday of last week saw the massacre of eight people, including several children, in Canada. The lack of clarity in what had happened began with the police. A police active alert said “the suspect was described ‘as female in a dress with brown hair’” while a later briefing “referred to the suspect as a ‘gunperson in a dress’…”…
Plans for an Irish campus by a US Catholic university at the former Mount Melleray Abbey in Co. Waterford have reached an “advanced stage”, according to the Cistercian Order in Ireland. In a statement, the Cistercian community at Our Lady of Silence Abbey said discussions with Florida-based Ave Maria University on a proposed “educational and…
“Sadly, this is not an isolated incident,” said Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign in response to a case of coercive abortion before the courts this week, renewing debates over safeguards within Ireland’s abortion law. A man in his 20s appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court after pleading guilty to unlawfully ending the life of…
The Irish Catholic, operating since 1888, has warned its future is being commercially threatened after An Post said it cannot provide paid-for postal collection services at the publication’s new Dublin 2 address, citing capacity constraints. This newspaper has endured through the Rising, wars, civil wars, and more recently the Covid pandemic – the paper believes…
New data from Amárach Market Research has shown that 63% of unmarried Roman Catholics in Ireland under the age of 35 want to get married in a Catholic Church. Their primary reasoning is religious belief, followed by tradition and cultural significance. Accord Director Tony Shanahan reacted to the data over St Valentine’s weekend, highlighting that…
Thirty years ago, as a postgraduate student completing my master’s degree in education, I was invited to choose an area of ‘comparative education’ to research. It was not a decision to take lightly since the essay would form a significant part of my overall assessment profile. I was 22 years old, a newly qualified teacher,…
In a bid to stop members of a breakaway traditionalist society from incurring excommunications through the illicit ordination of new bishops, the Vatican has offered a path forward based on theological dialogue. A February 12 communique published by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and signed by its prefect, Argentine Cardinal Victor…
Intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face.” When George Orwell wrote these words in his proposed preface to Animal Farm, he was not describing prison or state censorship. He was describing a far more personal failure – the moment when a journalist knows the truth and decides, for reasons…
After the defeat of their extreme abortion proposal just before Christmas that would have allowed abortion on request up-to-birth, Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy barely paused for a breath before returning with another bill, this time focused on removing the life-saving three-day wait before an abortion takes place. The abortion law requires that a period…
Renata Steffens
Eilis Mulroy