Pilgrims have been urged to avoid the annual Croagh Patrick climb on Reek Sunday due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Groups involved in organising the Reek Sunday pilgrimage including St Mary’s parish in Westport, the gardaí and Mayo County Council issued a joint statement asking people to stay away. Speaking to CatholicIreland.net, administrator of Westport Parish…
The vocations crisis is not a legitimate reason for supressing a parish, the Vatican has warned in a new set of rules on renewing parish and diocesan life. It said that non-legitimate reasons for closing a parish include a priest shortage and financial troubles in the diocese, as well as any other reason that is…
Several Catholic bishops in Nigeria’s state of Oyo asked the federal and state governments to consider opening schools and churches closed in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bishops from six dioceses in and around the city of Ibadan said the closure of schools had increased crimes such as rape and other gender-based violence, especially…
The Vatican is under increasing pressure to take a stronger line with Beijing, writes Jason Osborne Recent footage documenting blindfolded, handcuffed, and shaven-headed people being detained and loaded onto a train in the Xinjiang region of northern China has seen the international spotlight slowly turning in China’s direction. What China is being accused of is…
As finance ministers representing the world’s wealthiest countries prepare to meet online, Caritas Internationalis has echoed Pope Francis’ call for debt relief to poor countries reeling from war, poverty and the coronavirus pandemic. Presenting the organisation’s annual report at an online media briefing on July 17, Aloysius John, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis, said the debt…
Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, retired prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, has died at the age of 80. A close collaborator with Pope St John Paul II and retired Pope Benedict XVI, the cardinal also spent almost 27 years working in the Apostolic Signature, the Church’s highest court. In a condolence message, Pope Francis said…
Letter from America In failing to challenge Donald Trump on his moral inconsistencies, Catholics have also failed their Church One of my all-time favourite television shows is The West Wing, the seven-season epoch chronicling life inside the White House’s executive office. At the helm of the nation is President Jed Bartlett, a Catholic Democrat who…
Three Catholic-run hospitals providing life-saving services free of charge to vulnerable Syrians hope to aid some 50,000 patients by the project’s end next year. “Institutions in Syria now are having a lot of difficulties…so, this project supporting these hospitals is helping them to go on,” said Flavia Chevallard, project coordinator for Operation Open Hospitals in…
Currently, the Government recommends wearing cloth masks – it does not require medical grade masks or respirators. The Government considers medical masks and respirators as vital supplies and are not intended for use by the public in the community. They want to try and make sure that medical face masks are kept for health care…
Vatican recognises ‘rogue’ exorcist group A Vatican-recognised group of exorcists has issued a new handbook for practitioners of the Church’s ritual to combat demonic possession, among other things insisting that authority to perform exorcisms belongs exclusively to priests assigned by their diocesan bishop and no one else. According to figures from the group, the move comes…