The summer solstice was a scorching day in the golf club of Birr, Co. Offaly this year. A golf team tournament was held to raise awareness for vocations to the diocesan priesthood, called ‘Play for Vocations.’ This event was part of the ‘Year of Vocations’ to the diocesan priesthood that was instituted two months ago…
400-year-old church emerges from the waters in Mexico Due to an intense heat wave and drought that has spread throughout various parts of Mexico, a more than 400-year-old Catholic church has completely emerged from the waters in the state of Chiapas. The church of the disappeared town of San Juan Quechula, dedicated to the apostle…
Barb Fraze A bishop in north central India urged Catholics throughout the nation to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament for seven days to help end the worsening ethnic violence in Manipur, a state in the country’s northeast, bordering Myanmar. The situation “is worsening day by day in Manipur … it’s literally burning,” Bishop Chacko…
Ireland’s newest bishop has said that the synodal path inaugurated by Pope Francis is an opportunity for the Church to become more participatory. Speaking after his ordination in St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford on Sunday, Bishop Paul Connell, new Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, said: “Placing our faith and trust in God involves, above all,…
The Sunday Gospel, Deacon Greg Kandra Jer 20:10-13 Ps 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35 Rom 5:12-15 Mt 10:26-33 How is your Ordinary Time going? After the intensity of Lent and the jubilation of Easter we may think this period is relatively uneventful, but think again. On the 12th Sunday of a time we call “ordinary,” we find ourselves…
The Sunday Gospel 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time Ex 19:2-6a Ps 100:1-2, 3, 5 Rom 5:6-11 Mt 9:36-10:8 The Roman catacombs are unique, unlike any other place, where the faith, courage and love of the early Christians is evoked powerfully. In these ancient networks of tunnels and chambers deep beneath the eternal city of Rome one encounters…
The Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior (Migob) announced in official media the “voluntary dissolution” of the Immaculate Conception Catholic University of the Archdiocese of Managua (UCICAM), which functioned as a formation centre for seminarians from the Nicaraguan capital. According to ministerial agreement 77-2023-OSFL, published May 18 in La Gaceta, the regime’s official newspaper, the minister…
A consistent life ethic takes us beyond ideas of the deserving and undeserving poor and vulnerable, writes Aimee Murphy When approached to write this piece, I first considered expounding upon my understanding of all the various issues that the consistent life ethic touches on: ending abortion, war, the death penalty, euthanasia, embryo destruction, police brutality,…
Good Friday at 25 Reconciliation was not an optional extra in the Gospel message and teaching of Jesus: it was a core value, writes Archbishop Eamon Martin Two commentators on a recent radio interview were discussing our historic peace agreement of April 10, 1998. I found it quite sad that throughout the entire discussion each used…
Easter is a reminder that Christians are called to be lights in an often dark and weary world, writes David Gibson “This is the night,” the Church sings out again and again in a poetic hymn dating far back in Christian history called the ‘Exsultet’. It is heard each year in Catholic Churches during the Easter Vigil…