Pope Francis will declare Blessed John Henry Newman, the 19th-Century English cardinal, a saint on October 13. The English theologian will be canonised during a Mass at the Vatican along with a Swiss laywoman, an Indian nun, an Italian nun and a nun known as the “Mother Teresa of Brazil”. The date for the canonisation…
Bishops in the Ivory Coast have warned of a new civil war in the run-up to 2020 elections, unless urgent action is taken to ease communal tensions and withdraw weapons in West African state. “A general climate of fear now reigns throughout our population, linked to recurrent intercommunal conflicts, issues of insecurity, illicit forest occupation…
Google has admitted that it “blacklisted” a significant number of videos on YouTube ahead of last year’s abortion referendum, and interfered with search results. This newspaper was also directly affected by the interference. Voters who searched for certain terms had the results of their searches manually altered by Google, ensuring that videos chosen by the…
Last week, a British appeals court ruled a mentally incapacitated woman would not be forced to have an abortion against her will, overturning the decision made by the country’s Court of Protection. The original decision was met with shock by the country’s Catholic Church and pro-life organisations. Although little is known about the woman’s circumstances, it…
Encouraging lay leadership will be a key task for tomorrow’s clergy, Bishop Larry Duffy has said. Speaking at the ordination of Fr Kevin Connolly in St Macartan’s Cathedral, Monaghan, Bishop Duffy said that as a priest Fr Connolly would be called to spend time with Jesus, pondering his life and message and celebrating his presence…
Congo’s bishops said territory in the east of the country is being ceded to violent extremists, who are using the lack of government control to massacre civilians and plunder resources. “We do not understand why the Democratic Republic of Congo’s armed forces, backed by the United Nations Stabilisation Mission, have not managed to neutralise these…
Vintage clothes offer a solution to our ecological and fashion crisis, writes Madison Duddy In today’s world, fashion is one the largest polluting industries in the world. With severe ecological damage caused from ink that contaminates local streams to the unrecyclable plastic that ends up in the ocean or a landfill, dealing the fashion…
Frenzy and Betrayal. The Anatomy of a Political Assassination by Alan Shatter (Merrion Press, €19.95) Joe Carroll Alan Shatter has had to wait five years to give his version of his political downfall in May 2014 and the long ordeal of having his name cleared by two commissions of enquiry and finally the Supreme Court.…
Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s remains have been transferred from the Archdiocese of New York to Peoria, Illinois, after three years of litigation, clearing the way for the former archbishop’s sainthood cause to go forward. Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria announced that Sheen’s remains had been transferred from St Patrick Cathedral, New York, to the Cathedral…
In a world that is becoming ever “busier”, books provide a gateway to evangelisation, Ossory’s Bishop Dermot Farrell has said. His comments come after he was appointed as chair of Ireland’s leading religious publisher and retailer Veritas. “It is good to be working [with] everyone at Veritas who for the past 120 years have been,…