True Christmas spirit will be felt on the streets of Cork City in the run-up to Christmas Eve, as hundreds of students from 22 schools across the city don the familiar yellow jackets and rally the troops for the annual SHARE (Students Harness Aid for the Relief of the Elderly) fundraising effort. The iconic SHARE…
January Plea for Govt to step up and fight Christian persecution Church in Chains, a charity dedicated to action in support of persecuted Christians worldwide, called for the Irish Government to take more “concrete steps” toward action against this persecution. The Foreign Office estimated that around 215 million Christians saw discrimination and violence in 2018…
Róise McGagh Northern Ireland’s bishops have said new abortion laws in Northern Ireland are “unjust” and that no one is obliged to cooperate with them. Currently there is a regulatory framework in place in the North that governs abortion provision until more permanent legislation is expected to be introduced in three months. “The new…
Donal Walsh’s message of life continues to inspire people, his mother Elma tells Claire Fitzpatrick Seven years ago, then 16-year old Donal Walsh celebrated his last Christmas. The Kerry teenager, having been faced with a looming sentence of succumbing to his cancer, determinedly powered through his terminal symptoms despite being told he should “prepare…
Pope Francis has abolished the obligation of secrecy for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a Church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse. “The person who files the report, the person who alleges to have been harmed and the witnesses shall…
The company tasked with setting up and running the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) in Ireland is to be put into voluntary liquidation after losses of €4.56m last year. The decision is believed to have been made by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and others after various fundraising initiatives across Ireland failed to meet costs. The document…
A new analysis from the Pew Research Centre shows that many Catholic priests are holding to Pope Francis’ advice to keep their homilies on the shorter side, especially compared to Protestant denominations. An analysis of nearly 50,000 sermons, given across a variety of Christian denominations during the months of April and May this year, found…
Luke Silke Fr Ray Kelly reveals all in ‘raw and honest’ book Christmas, for Fr Ray Kelly, is a very special time of year, which he always spends with family. When his parents died he would spend Christmas with his sister and her family, and now that she has died he spends it in his…
I don’t look forward to the day when I may be unable to swallow the Holy Communion which the priest will bring me, writes Kieron Wood It’s estimated that five in every 100,000 people over 50 are affected by progressive nuclear palsy (PSP). I’m a male aged 70, so I’m in the most common…
The administration of Argentine president Alberto Fernández, who took office last week, has updated the country’s abortion protocol to guarantee access to abortion to women who have been raped. Argentinian law allows abortion in cases when the mother’s life or health is in danger, or in cases of rape. However pro-choice activists maintain that it…