The company tasked with setting up and running the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) in Ireland is to be put into voluntary liquidation after losses of €4.56m last year. The decision is believed to have been made by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and others after various fundraising initiatives across Ireland failed to meet costs. The document…
Despite various reports last year that Dublin’s World Meeting of Families would cost up to €40 million, the festival’s Secretary General has confirmed that “it came in under budget”. Fr Timothy Bartlett told this newspaper that WMOF cost under its €20 million budget and that the final figures of the event will be available to…
The office for Vatican Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life announced the theme Pope Francis has chosen for the next World Meeting of Families, which will be in Rome June 23-27, 2021– it is: ‘Family love: A vocation and a path to holiness’. The dicastery asked that in preparation for the meeting, families and…
A Dublin parish is excited for the re-opening of their church, especially since it has been announced they will be given the altar and ambo used for the papal Mass during the World Meeting of Families last summer. St Joseph the Artisan church, in Bonnybrook parish, will welcome Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin on March…
A Co. Down-based priest and writer has criticised this summer’s World Meeting of Families (WMOF) for watering down the Christian vision of the family to become more acceptable to current secular understandings of family life. Writing in The Furrow, Fr Andrew McMahon observes that although there were “unquestionably edifying aspects” of WMOF2018, a desire for…
Organisers of Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland frightened people away from attending the papal Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, according to former Tánaiste Joan Burton. Speaking at an Oireachtas committee the Labour TD said organisers “scared most older people in Ireland into thinking that they could not do a two-mile walk”. “Those in charge of…
The World Meeting of Families was “overshadowed” and “hijacked” by claims that Pope Francis had long been aware of sexual misconduct concerns about former US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Armagh’s Archbishop Eamon Martin has said. Speaking to Cruxnow.com, the Primate of All-Ireland praised the event as a Church event of “great joy and participation”, and said…
Tara McGahan When I was planning my Summer holidays this year, I had no idea that they would include a unique experience as part of a group of international media who were in Ireland for the visit of Pope Francis for the World Meeting of Families 2018. But, that’s exactly what happened on Saturday…
The Notebook Fr Conor McDonough An awful lot has happened in the Church since the World Meeting of Families just two short weeks ago. When that fact is combined with the muted response to the event itself on the part of many Irish people, there is a danger that believers who participated joyfully in…
At the end of last week’s article I wrote about the beginnings of papal visit reviews. It was mixed, with some positive commentary at times. One of the most positive was an engaging interview with the Richardson family on the Ray D’Arcy Show (RTÉ Radio 1) on Tuesday of last week. Mary and Damien, the…
Colm Fitzpatrick
Greg Daly
Brendan O’Regan