A Nigerian priest who was kidnapped and held ransom on Christmas Eve recalled his experience at Mass last week, saying prayer is what saved him. Fr Cajetan Apeh, a recently ordained priest assigned to St Theresa’s Parish in Anam, was kidnapped along with the church’s pastor on December 24. The two priests were ambushed while…
Irish Parliamentarians: deputies and senators, 1918-2018 by Anthony White (Institute of Public Administration, €60.00) Felix M. Larkin It is axiomatic that we get the politicians we deserve. We elect them, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves. However, while our politicians generally get a bad press, we in Ireland have been reasonably well served by them.…
A former head of the Philippines’ Catholic bishop’s conference has called on people to ignore President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated rants against the Church. In his New Year message, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan said those who call God stupid and teach that it is useless to go to Church are “anti-Christ”. “Do not listen to…
Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O’Toole (Head of Zeus, £11.99) Peter Hegarty In writing his latest book, leading commentator Fintan O’Toole set himself a task: “What I have attempted here is simply one possible answer to the most obvious question: how did a great nation bring itself to the point of…
Vatican news paper publishes articles on women equality Too often in the Catholic Church, “the sacrifices of women are used only to reinforce the power of those who already have it,” the editor of the Vatican newspaper’s monthly section on women in the Church has written. In the ‘Woman-Church-World’ supplement to L’Osservatore Romano published last week, editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote: “A…
Developments in Artificial Intelligence pose challenges which the Church can help us answer, writes David Mullins It is probably fair to say that for most people, Artificial Intelligence is a concept whose meaning and relevance is still firmly located within the pages of dystopian fiction or vaguely remembered plot lines from half-baked – if…
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s trip to Mali and Ethiopia this week has been welcomed by a missionary organisation, in the hope it will influence Government policies. “It’s great that he’s going to Africa, because it draws attention southwards to see what is going on,” Viatores Christi CEO Shane Halpin told The Irish Catholic. Speculating that the…
A British parliamentary report has criticised the Indian government for failing to protect religious minorities from violent Hindu hardliners. A report by the British All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief said the rise of nationalist ‘Hindutva’ ideology – which defines ‘Indian’ as exclusively Hindu – has led to an increase in religious oppression…
A swastika drawn on the outer wall of a Dublin synagogue has been decried by Trinty College’s chaplains, but is being treated as mindless vandalism rather than anti-semitism by the Jewish community in Ireland. Gardaí are investigating the incident which happened just before New Year to the Terenure Synagogue on Rathfarnham Road. The graffiti has since been…
Dear Editor, When I was visiting Dublin during the Christmas holidays, I was astonished to see large billboards with pictures of cows and chickens and such slogans as ‘It’s not a personal choice if someone is killed’. Apparently paid for by a vegan organisation, these ads try to drive home the idea that choices that…