The former PSNI Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Baroness Nuala O’Loan has welcomed the news that two Belfast priests shot dead by the British Army have had their cases opened for potential recognition of sainthood by the bishop. “I am so very pleased to hear that Bishop McGuckian has initiated the process ‘for the cause of saints’ and…
The Church must stop acting as though it is “on the back foot” and have greater confidence in what the faith offers society, Fr Patrick Cahill told hundreds gathered in Maynooth for CHARIS Ireland’s National Day of Renewal. The gathering at St Patrick’s College brought together Catholics from across the country for a day of…
The future of the Irish Church Last week we argued that the Irish Church is managing decline rather than deciding what it wants to become. The question left hanging was what a real answer would look like. What we have actually done about the collapse in priest numbers can nearly be accounted for in three…
Religious Education in Irish schools should provide a broader, “more robust interfaith and religiously pluralist curricula”, Dr Peter Admirand, professor of Theology and director of the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue at Dublin City University, has argued in an opinion article published by the Irish Examiner. Nicholas Cuddihy, Education Nation podcast host, has said that Dr…
Ihe most popular version of the Irish republican song, The Foggy Dew, was penned by a priest at St Peter’s Cathedral, Belfast, which is about to mark its 160th birthday. It was one of the many fascinating facts I learned on a recent tour, led by local historian Steven Corr. St Peter’s was forty years…
There is something poetic about Wendell Berry’s death at the age of 92, the day before the launch of the 2026 Season of Creation at a Mass celebrated in Castel Gandolfo by Pope Leo XIV. Wendell Berry, the legendary Kentucky farmer, poet, writer, and conservationist, spent his life preaching the themes that the Season of…
Resistance among priests to synodality is leaving Irish parishes with “virtually no leadership” for reform, Fr Michael A. Conway has warned ahead of Ireland’s National Synodal Assembly on October 17. Writing in the September issue of The Furrow, the Galway priest and Professor of Faith and Culture at St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, said many…
Our Church is more diverse than most people think I spent a week in Romania recently living with a Catholic priest, his wife and their two children. That sentence may cause some readers to pause. A Catholic priest with a wife and children? Yes. And before anyone jumps to conclusions, this was not a…
Sometimes you wonder if your senses are deceiving you. The eyes nearly fell out of my head a week ago when I saw a front-page headline on the Irish Daily Mail: ‘HSE Defends Forum with US Expert on Men Breastfeeding.’ I turned away. But when I looked back the headline was still there unfortunately, befuddling…
Boxing legend Katie Taylor, who stepped into the ring in Croke Park on Saturday September 5 with the words ‘Psalm 18’ embellished on her gear, has said she would not be able to fight without God in her life. Taylor is a born-again Christian and, before moving to the US, where she currently resides with…
Renata Steffens
Martina Purdy
Breda O'Brien
Senator Ronan Mullen