Actors from the film trilogies The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have backed a campaign to turn the former home of Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien into an educational centre. Project Northmoor is seeking to raise nearly €5.4 million to purchase the house where Tolkien wrote his most famous novels. As of December 4,…
People gathered in Trier’s cathedral the evening of December 1 to pray for the victims of a lone attacker who ploughed his SUV into Christmas shoppers, killing five people and seriously injuring about a dozen others. A 9-week-old baby and her father were among those who died; the mother and the family’s 18-month-old were among…
Pope establishes Worldwide Prayer Network as Vatican entity The Vatican announced December 3 that Pope Francis has established the Worldwide Prayer Network Foundation as an entity with canonical and Vatican juridical identity. Formerly known as the “Apostleship of Prayer,” the Worldwide Prayer Network works “to coordinate and animate the vast spiritual movement, always very dear…
Iconic Dinosaur’s injuries come to light through Queen’s-led research The first Parasaurolophus discovered – the same species which features in the popular Netflix series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous – is likely to have been injured by a falling tree, a study led by a researcher from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) has discovered. Filippo Bertozzo, a…
The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. Our journey through Advent has highlighted hope, the virtue that keeps us going through darkness and coldness. We are going through a winter under the restrictions of coping with the Covid-19 virus. It is a severe winter for the homeless and for people who have lost their…
Dear Editor, Re David Quinn’s article ‘Dublin now needs an archbishop who is not afraid to be counter-cultural’ [IC 19/11/2020]. I agree completely with David Quinn and for some time now I have been disappointed with the archbishop. Now more than ever we need someone who is positive and a voice that lifts people up,…
Chai Brady, Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne There is widespread relief at a return to public Mass in the Republic, with many parishes now looking to the challenge of having as many people as possible present for Christmas Mass. Catholics in the North, however, will have to wait until December 11 before a return to…
To many secular eyes, the very idea that anyone would seek participation in public worship of God is alien, writes Declan Ganley On Wednesday of last week, just before America relaxed for its annual Thanksgiving holiday, the US Supreme Court ruled against the Governor of New York’s Covid-19 related ban on public worship. The full…
Pope Francis created 13 new cardinals last Saturday, urging them to remain vigilant lest they lose sight of their goal of the cross and resurrection. “All of us love Jesus, all of us want to follow him, yet we must always be vigilant to remain on the road,” Pope Francis said at the consistory .…
The relaxed moral norms of today come at a much greater cost than advertised, writes Oisín Walsh We’ve landed in a paradoxical place in terms of sexuality. In the bad old days, it was scandalous to deviate from the Catholic norms surrounding relationships. Nowadays, to be seen to adhere in any way to such norms…