Staff reporter For the first time in almost two years, The Irish Catholic Christian Solidarity Pilgrimage to the Holy Land will go ahead next month. The February 16-24 trip looked uncertain due to Covid-19 concerns. However, Israeli authorities announced that the borders of the Holy Land would reopen to pilgrims in time to facilitate the…
Bishop Wilybard Lagho of Malindi continued to call for calm in the Kenyan coastal region of Lamu, but said land disputes were behind the latest attacks, which have left at least seven people dead. The bishop told Catholic News Service there is credible evidence that the attacks are being perpetrated by local gangs with an…
Staff reporter Dublin’s Filipino community continues to celebrate devotion to Santo Niño de Cebú this week in St Joseph’s Church on Berkeley Road in Dublin. The devotion revolves around an image of the Christ Child widely venerated as miraculous by Filipino Catholics. The image itself is the oldest Christian artifact in the Philippines, originally a…
Sayed Wardak, 32, spent five years as a translator for the US Army in Afghanistan. In 2016, after nearly a year of hiding from the Taliban and in fear for his life, Mr Wardak and his wife, Sairah, immigrated to the United States. Knowing first-hand the perils of life in Afghanistan, and the challenges of…
The Missionaries of Charity congregation has been forced to shut Nirmala Shishu Bhawan, a home for orphaned, destitute and abandoned children in Uttar Pradesh state, after its lease expired. The Defence Estates Office demanded $250,000 from the nuns for trespassing. The closure came on the heels of the federal government’s refusal to renew the congregation’s…
Staff reporter This year began with the full recognition of the Irish language by the European Union for the first time in Ireland’s history as a member state. As an official language of the EU, all documents published by the union will be translated into Irish. Welcoming the decision, parish priest of Arklow and keen…
Staff reporter A Catholic nurse suffered harassment and discrimination because she refused to remove a small gold cross necklace at work, an employment tribunal ruled. Mary Onuoha, 61, was subjected to “offensive and intimidating” treatment by the National Health Service, her employer, and was unfairly dismissed from her job at the Croydon University Hospital in…
A ransom was paid for the missionaries held hostage in Haiti, said the husband and father of six of the now-released hostages. “There had been a ransom agreement reached with the hostage takers,” said Ray Noecker, whose wife and five children were among the 17 people kidnapped by a Haitian gang on October 16. Mr…
by John Lavenburg Last January when Chris Charles Scott directed a documentary about five French priests that cared for the sick through the 1873 yellow fever epidemic in Shreveport, Louisiana, he never expected that it would have a spot in this year’s Cannes World Film Festival. The expectation, Mr Scott said, was a regional and…
Pope sends Christmas greetings to Oriental Churches With Eastern rite Catholics and Orthodox Faithful celebrating Christmas on January 7, Pope Francis sent his best wishes for “peace and every joy”. Greeting the Faithful after the prayer of the Angelus last Thursday, Pope Francis sent his greetings to Orthodox Christians and Eastern rite Catholics who celebrated…