A Small Pslater by Padriag J. Daly (Scotus Press, €12.00; available from www.scotuspress.com) John F. Deane This new collection from Pádraig J. Daly has been eagerly waited for. Daly is a priest currently working in Dublin and he has published many collections of his poetry. The poems gathered here are excitingly new and move from an…
The president of the French bishops’ council for Catholic education expressed solidarity with the country’s school community following the beheading of a school teacher in an Islamist terror attack last week. “In these dark hours, Catholic education feels deeply united in solidarity with the whole school community…and first of all with the teachers,” Archbishop Laurent…
A Belarusian archbishop who has been denied entry back into his own country said the Vatican was doing everything in its power to resolve the situation and help him return. To live in “forced exile” is difficult, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk told SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops’ conference. “I can only live in…
The Lonely Century. Coming together in a world that’s pulling apart by Noreena Hertz (Sceptre, £20.00) Frank Litton It is no surprise that soap operas are a staple of television. After all, we make sense of where we are and where we might go with the ‘story’ of our lives. We find ourselves cast into roles…
Everything must be done to make sure that schools in the North reopen next week to avoid “repercussions for years to come” according to the Chief Executive of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCSM). Writing in The Irish News, Gerry Campbell said the CCSM is “extremely concerned” about the immediate impact on young people…
A Catholic Church labour group in the Philippines has accused lawmakers of ignoring the poor, as well as the health and labour sectors with its budget for 2021 by not allocating a “sufficient amount” to cushion the effect of the coronavirus on hard-hit Filipinos. The Church People-Solidarity Group, an organisation composed of clergymen and churchgoers…
Catholic bishops in Congo are calling for a special international criminal court to try people suspected of mass killings and human rights abuses in the African country, where thousands of women and girls have been raped by armed men. The bishops made the call in a statement released October 19 after their plenary meeting in the capital,…
Pope names new archbishop of Lyon after resignation of Cardinal Barbarin Pope Francis has named Bishop Olivier de Germay of Ajaccio, Corsica, to be the new archbishop of Lyon, France, succeeding a cardinal whose conviction on charges of failing to report clerical sex abuse was overturned. Cardinal Philippe Barbarin’s conviction was overturned in January, but…
Sir Cliff Richard said his faith sustained him after being “in a pit” of despair following a claim in 2014 of historical sexual assault. Sir Cliff appeared on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories and opened up on the devastation caused by the incident, recalling how he was left crumpled and sobbing on the kitchen floor. “I…
Dear Editor, I was dismayed to read that NPHET’s reason for their recommendation that public worship should not continue [during level 3 restrictions], accepted by our government, was to decrease contacts in areas that, as a society, are relatively speaking in the context of a pandemic, less important. As a Catholic, I most strongly disagree…