KNOCK NOVENA The Novena takes place at 3pm and 8pm each day. Anointing of the Sick at 2.30pm daily. Wednesday, August 14 John Bruton Theme: Faith, Future and Europe 12pm Seminar John Bruton is a former Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 1994 to 1997. He was also the EU…
Notebook Fr Vincent Sherlock It’s an old story now – well a few weeks old and that’s history, the way life moves on. The Taoiseach compared the leader of the opposition to being like a priest who speaks against sin while being a sinner himself. It was, in all fairness, a cheap and unnecessary…
The High Court has agreed to hear in September a bid from the parents of Tafida Raqeeb to take her to Italy for treatment. The five-year-old girl has been comatose since February, and UK doctors want to remove her life-sustaining treatment. The UK doctors have barred Raqeeb’s parents from taking her abroad for treatment. Two…
One of the churches in Sri Lanka damaged in attacks on Easter was re-consecrated on Sunday. During the ceremony, the Archbishop of Colombo criticised the government’s investigation of the attacks. St Sebastian’s parish in Negombo, nearly 25 miles north of Colombo, was re-consecrated on July 21 by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith. The church was one of…
Vincent Lambert, a 42-year-old quadriplegic man, died in a French hospital last week, nine days after doctors withdrew his food and water. “Vincent died at 8.24 this morning,” Lambert’s nephew, Francois Lambert, told AFP News Agency. Lambert died on July 11 at University Hospital in the northern French city of Reims, where doctors had withdrawn his…
Pol O Muiri C.S. Lewis, Belfast man and writer, is probably best known for his fiction and his Christian apologetics. His works on Narnia have enthralled children for decades while works like Mere Christianity, have provided solace and guidance for adult readers. Narnia is, of course, a mythical and mysterious place where wondrous and unexpected…
A row has broken out between two leading scientists over whether science and religion are compatible. Prof. David McConnell, Pro-Chancellor at Trinity College Dublin, a former lecturer in genetics, has said that science has “made it difficult for many people to believe in dogmatic religion”. The honorary president of the Humanist Association of Ireland wrote…
The Venezuelan bishops asked last Thursday that president Nicolas Maduro resign from the office which he “illegitimately” exercises and that a new president be elected in the shortest time possible. “In face of the reality of an illegitimate and failed government, Venezuela is crying out for a change of direction, a return to the Constitution.…
The Catholic bishops of Haiti have announced a year of prayer and adoration for the country, which continues to face heightened tensions and instability amid calls for President Jovenel Moise to resign. “The misery has become so sharp and the insecurity so destabilising that the tree of hope has been torn from the ground,” the…
As the Catholic Church in Chile continues to deal with the fallout of clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up, the Chilean government passed a law removing the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes against children. The new law, which passed the Chilean Congress earlier this month, ensures that there will be no time limit…