A June 7 US Supreme Court decision ruled that hundreds of thousands of immigrants with a temporary immigration status cannot apply for a more permanent way to remain in the country if they first entered without authority to do so. The unanimous ruling applies to those with Temporary Permanent Status, popularly known as TPS –…
Room to improve for Vatican handling of financial crime Moneyval, the European financial watchdog committee, said that while the Vatican has made progress in combatting financial crimes, its investigations into potential crimes committed by senior officials needs more fine-tuning. The group, also known as the Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of…
Dear Editor, Some national politicians have questioned why a Catholic ethos should be present in our schools. Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of children are from a Catholic background and that their parents have a sneaking feeling that the Catholic ethos is the most compassionate, coherent and comprehensive available. These…
The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. About ten years ago we celebrated the Year of Faith and the logo chosen as a symbol of the times was the boat tossed about in a storm, today’s Gospel, Mark 4:35-41. In this series of Sunday Reflections, we have already referred to the problems of the…
Remote work here to stay as Facebook reopens offices Facebook has said it will give its employees the option of sticking with remote work for the long-term, going as far as to aid employees interested in moving to other countries. The social media giant told AFP that beginning June 15, it will let any employee…
Euthanasia deaths soared last year in Canada The number of Canadians who ended their lives by euthanasia and assisted suicide increased by 17% in 2020, the country’s health department announced on June 7. According to Abby Hoffman, assistant deputy minister of Health Canada, 7,595 people received “medically assisted deaths” last year, a figure which amounts…
A Catholic priest’s oratory in Scotland has reached the finals of this year’s ‘Shed of the Year’ competition. Fr Len Black from Inverness battled 331 entrants to reach the final of the Cuprinol Shed of the Year. The competition is in its 15th year, with the number of entrants doubling this year compared to 2020.…
Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver said he was “filled with deep sadness” after learning of the discovery of the bodies of more than 200 children buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest indigenous residential school. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation May 30 reported an “unthinkable loss” that was “never documented” at…
The demand for Catholic education remains strikingly high, but what is the value, asks Tracey Harkin Some 23 years after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland is still not a society at ease with itself. Recent months saw substantial street violence. Frequently we hear integrated schools being heralded as the answer to these divisions. “Educate…
The recent arrest of a Vatican-approved bishop, priests and seminarians in north-central China came as a shocking development, as religious persecution has intensified in the communist-led country under President Xi Jingping. Police arrested Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang May 21, a day after authorities detained seven priests and an unspecified number of seminarians. They…