Ireland has one of the fastest-ageing populations in Europe, and most oldsters seem to be coping reasonably well – according to TCD’s Longitudinal Study on Ageing. (‘Tilda’). There are 789 Irish centenarians (including the diaspora) of whom 637 are women, and 152 men. In every study, women averagely live longer than men – more evidence…
“Love for others, and especially for the poor, is made concrete by promoting justice,” wrote the late Pope St John Paul II in Centesimus Annus. For the charity Mary’s Meals, this means feeding over three million school children across sixteen of the world’s poorest countries every day. By providing meals to children, the organisation also…
Recently, Pope Leo welcomed the new female Archbishop of Canterbury to the Vatican. The optics of the meeting bring the Catholic Church’s male-only priesthood into focus though it can never really be said to be out of focus among progressive Catholics. It is difficult to make a case for the theological rationale behind the Church’s…
As pressure grows on RTÉ to conduct an audit into bias at the station, its decades-long handling of abortion provides the most compelling argument for doing so, writes Eilís Mulroy When RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst appeared before the Oireachtas Media Committee recently, he was asked a straightforward question: would he support an audit examining…
For all but six of Ireland’s thirty-four hurling counties, the intercounty season is already over. Before the meteorological summer had even properly begun, the vast majority of counties had played their final championship match of the year. For some their seasons ended not on packed terraces amid the glamour of a sold-out stadium, but in…
Did you see the video showing a priest in Ireland bring a funeral eulogy to a premature close? Even in Canada I was able to view this. I felt sorry for the priest in question, as I have often felt like doing likewise. As a presider at funerals in Ireland for over 40 years, there…
A Belfast young adult Catholic group has marked the end of its first year with a Mass celebrated by Bishop Alan McGuckian, as one member said young people are increasingly trying to “find their way back to the Church”. Recharge, established in September 2024, brings together young Catholic adults from across Belfast and the Diocese…
From unexploded ordinance in the Mekong Delta to Gaelic football on the streets of Hanoi, Ireland’s presence in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos runs deeper than most Irish people realise, Garry O’Sullivan reports There is something quietly remarkable about the Irish embassy in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Tucked into one of the world’s most dynamic…
A Catholic priest from Nigeria has been sentenced in a Texas court to life in prison, as well as to two 20-year prison terms plus $30,000 in fines, for sexually abusing several women under his spiritual care — a felony crime in that state. Fr Anthony Odiong, a priest of the Diocese of Uyo, Nigeria,…
In late February, Pope Leo XIV thanked Fr Bruno Kant of the Diocese of Fulda in Germany for his “many years of faithful and devoted priestly service.” Kant, the oldest priest in the world at 110 years of age, passed away on the night of Friday, May 29. He had been a priest since 1950.…
Mary Kenny
Eilis Mulroy