Dear Editor, It was with great delight that I received the announcement that Bishop Dermot Farrell was to become the new archbishop of Dublin diocese. Having been the President of St Patrick’s College in Maynooth and doing wonders in the Diocese of Ossory, I’m sure he has the experience, pastoral capability, courage, wisdom and gravitas…
Parental leave to be extended to five weeks The Cabinet has approved Minister for Children Roderick O’Gorman’s plan to extend parental leave from two to five weeks. Mr O’Gorman has also received Cabinet approval to extend the time the leave can be taken from just the first year to the first two years of child’s…
Dear Editor, I was pleased to see that you will – please God – again start bringing pilgrims to the Holy Land in 2021. My husband and I were part of the trip three years ago and it had a very moving impact on our Faith and helped us appreciate the scriptures in a new…
Chai Brady, Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne An Irish nun who works with struggling Christians in the Holy Land has said that the community will make the most of Christmas despite the fact that there will be no pilgrims this year. “It will be hopeful and it will be joyful and it’ll be family-based, but…
The Vatican decreed that priests can celebrate as many as four Masses on several important feast days, including Christmas, to accommodate the participation of the Faithful. Worldwide In a decree published in Latin December 16, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, said the decision was made “in…
Hungary’s Parliament passed a law December 15 defining the family as having a woman as the mother and a man as the father, effectively banning adoptions by same-sex couples and complicating adoptions by single people. The change is the latest of several to be made in recent years in what the government has said are…
Catholic bishops in northeast Italy have said that the risk of illness amid the ongoing pandemic constitutes a “grave necessity” permitting priests to confer the Sacrament of Reconciliation under the “third form,” also called general absolution, before and during the Christmas season. General absolution is a form of the Sacrament of Reconciliation which may be…
Paul Healy The entire world is hurting from the Covid-19 crisis, but it’s in places like Somalia where you see how the pandemic is tipping people who were already desperately poor over the edge. Somalia is a country already struggling due to conflict and the awful impact of climate change. Now a global pandemic has…
Three years after taking in 2-year-old Inimffon Uwamobong and her younger brother, Sister Matylda Iyang finally heard from the mother who had abandoned them. “Their mother came back and told me that she (Inimffon) and her younger sibling are witches, asking me to throw them out of the convent,” said Sister Iyang, who oversees the…
Toddlers could hardly contain their excitement as they danced in the church aisles to the Holy Missionary Choir’s Christmas songs during a celebration that was a bright star of hope for Iraqi Syriac Catholic refugee families. While the little ones are too young to know their ancestral roots, Christmas memories for their parents are those…