Gabriel Doherty November 1918 is now, of course, best remembered for the signing of the Armistice that ended the fighting of the First World War. As the month broke, however, The Irish Catholic was more immediately concerned with the threat of death from another enemy, with whom no negotiated peace was possible. Fatalities from the…
Dublin-based priest and author of Why the Irish Church Deserves to Die, Fr Joe McDonald has launched a new Church-reform initiative to address the problems it is currently facing. Speaking at the Roncalli Community launch this month, named after Pope John XXIII, Angelo Roncalli, Fr McDonald said we need to “preach Jesus and the Gospel…
Parishioners will be asked to dig deep next weekend to plug a shortfall in cash after August’s World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis. It will be the fifth time that a national collection has been taken up in parishes in a bid to cover costs associated with the event and visit…
Dear Editor, I thought your last week’s front-page story (IC 25/10/18) about the NI government’s reliance on charities because of failures in welfare reform was very interesting, and just goes to show how much the government there is struggling. Regardless of who is to blame, it’s an absolute disgrace that people in need are being…
The membership of the International Astronomical Union has voted to recommend that the name of a Belgian Catholic priest be added to the astronomical law explaining the expansion of the universe, or ‘Big Bang’. Using an electronic voting system, the IAU passed a resolution to recommend renaming the ‘Hubble law’ as the Hubble-Lemaître Law. The law…
The Irish Catholic readers have added their voice to a debate about whether the Angelus should stop being broadcast on Irish television. In an online poll, which racked up almost 1,500 votes, 94% of voters said the Angelus should continue to be broadcast on RTÉ, while only 6% said it should be stopped. The poll…
A new pastoral centre was opened on October 28 at the Church of the Guardian Angels in Newtownpark in Dublin by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. The centre already has 150 volunteers who will help with the running of activities for everyone, ranging from toddlers to senior citizens. Alongside programmes like ballet lessons, parish priest Fr Dermot…
Gabriel Doherty The pages of The Irish Catholic for Saturday, October 26, 1918, contained an eclectic assortment of items. No one topic dominated, in comparison to the recent extensive coverage of the sinking of the Leinster, but two themes were common to nearly all stories: the growing belief that the end of the war was…
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò said he is convinced he was right to accuse Pope Francis and Church officials of failing to act on accusations that then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick engaged in sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. Archbishop Viganò, the former nuncio to the US, said an open letter released on October 7 by Cardinal Marc Ouellet…
Dr Kevin Myers Hallowe’en is on the horizon and with it we find many of our friends and neighbours preparing to meet the macabre. In this mist of the seasonal jovial ghoul, however, we also take time to reflect on our lives and, rather importantly remember our dead. In many ways, Christianly is a religious…