Inés San Martín Amidst a growing global concern over the Church’s handling of abuse cases and cover-up, Pope Francis has appointed the Vatican’s former top prosecutor on cases of clerical sexual abuse, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, back in his former office, though the prelate will continue heading the Church in Malta. The decision to…
The government of Pakistan’s deadline for Trócaire to cease operations is just weeks away, with an Irish Member of European Parliament saying it may be that “faith-based organisations are being targeted”. Pakistan’s government sent a letter to Church-charity Trócaire along with 16 other charitable agencies last month asking them to leave the country. The letter…
The head coach of a Scottish football team is subjected to sectarian abuse every day because he is an Irish Catholic who played for Celtic, according to his agent. After Neil Lennon, head coach of Hibernian, was hit with a coin at a recent Edinburgh Derby match between renowned rivals Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian…
Belfast’s High Court should send a clear message that killing unborn children is a crime in the North, and that health professionals who break the law must be prosecuted, pro-life campaigners have said. Speaking against the background of a court case involving a woman challenging a decision to prosecute her for procuring illegal abortion pills…
Seven Coptic Christians were killed and 12 more injured in Egypt when a bus traveling to a desert monastery south of Cairo was ambushed by Islamic militants. The bus was traveling to St Samuel the Confessor monastery on November 2, when a number of attackers approached the vehicle from nearby dirt roads and opened fire.…
France’s Catholic bishops have published a report on measures to combat sexual abuse by clergy, listing data on criminal charges and efforts by a new anti-abuse commission. “The journey to zero tolerance has begun in a firm and visible way,” Bishop Luc Crepy of Le Puy-en-Velay, head of the French Church’s permanent commission for fighting…
Peter Casey may have tapped into disaffection gaining some 23% of the voters at the presidential election, but he is decidedly out of touch when it comes to the broadcast of the Angelus on RTÉ. The station’s exit poll following the election found that 68% of people supported the national broadcaster continuing to broadcast the…
Galway’s former Magdalene laundry is to be converted to a service to help women and children who have experienced domestic abuse. Renamed ‘ModhEile’ – ‘another way’ – in the hope that it will inspire women suffering from domestic abuse to find a way to rebuild their lives and create a better future for their families,…
The High Court in India’s Jharkhand state has rejected the latest bail plea of a Missionaries of Charity nun accused of selling babies from a congregation-run home for unwed mothers. Sr Concilia was arrested on July 4 at Nirmal Hriday, the home she managed for unmarried mothers in the state capital Ranchi. She was initially remanded in…
From Partition to Brexit: The Irish Government and Northern Ireland by Donnacha ó Beacháin (Manchester University Press, £75.00 hb / £22.99 pb) Peter Hegarty Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Associate Professor of Politics at the School of Law and Government at DCU, begins and ends his book with discussions of the Ulster question’s affronts to democracy. Partition, he tells us, was an…