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…
Catholic Coney Barrett sworn in as US Supreme Court justice US President Donald Trump has sworn in his latest nominee to the Supreme Court. The White House ceremony took place on Monday night after Amy Coney Barrett’s [pictured] nomination was approved by congress. She will be the 115th justice in US history and the fifth…
Evolution at work? Babies born without wisdom teeth More people are being born without wisdom teeth and an extra artery in their arm as a result of rapid evolution, according to scientists in Australia. Dr Teghan Lucas, of Flinders University in Adelaide, has discovered that people are undergoing a micro-evolution which allows evolutionary changes to…
The Sunday Gospel Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap. Many of us will be familiar with the opening lines of Thomas Hood’s delightful poem… “I remember, I remember the house where I was born, The little window where the sun peeped in at morn.” Less familiar and less cheerful are his lines about November… “No shade,…
Chai Brady, Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne With Britain stepping up preparation to crash out of the EU, priests who minister in border parishes have warned that the coronavirus should not distract attention from the long-term effects of a ‘no deal’ Brexit on communities. Bishop Larry Duffy of Clogher, a diocese which straddles the border, and…
The fact the Government has included visiting a grave as an essential purpose, which allows for travel outside the permitted 5km limit during the six weeks of level 5 lockdown, will be “a great solace” according to one of Ireland’s top psychiatrists. UCD lecturer Prof. Patricia Casey also told The Irish Catholic that churches being…
The number of Catholics worldwide increased by almost 16 million in a year to 1.33 billion, according to statistics highlighted by the Vatican around the 2020 World Mission Sunday. The figures, shared by the Fides News Service, showed that there were 15,716,000 more Catholics at the end of 2018 – the most recent year where numbers are…
Border communities insist that a deal between Britain and the EU is vital for the peace process, reports Chai Brady, Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne The coronavirus pandemic has dominated domestic and international news for most of 2020 which has led to the overshadowing of other current events but Brexit still looms large in the…
San Francisco’s archbishop plans to conduct an exorcism on October 17 at the site of a now-toppled statue of St Junipero Serra at St Rafael Mission Church in San Rafael. Just the saint’s feet are left after the statue on church property was vandalised and desecrated on October 12 by what Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone described…
Despite being told that there is no such thing as truth, students are told to accept theories that are younger than they are without question, writes Ronan Doheny While University College Dublin’s marketing campaign to attract new students uses the slogan ‘Think Bigger’, my experiences in UCD and Trinity College Dublin have found the opposite…