A new crisis pregnancy centre in Buenos Aires will welcome women facing difficult pregnancies, offering resources, counselling, and medical support. The ‘Home of the Motherly Embrace’ is being opened in response to a July proposal by a group of priests who work in the poorest areas of the cities. The goal is to meet the…
A top Chilean cardinal who has been summoned by civil prosecutors to testify over allegations that he covered up clerical sexual abuse has told the priests of his archdiocese that the “crimes” of the Church have contributed to a “climate of tension” being lived in the country. According to local media, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of…
Australia’s Catholic bishops and religious orders, responding to recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, accepted 98% of its suggestions, but said they could not accept recommendations that would violate the Seal of Confession. “We are committed to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable people while maintaining the seal. We…
Historian Dr Donal Corcoran describes his lifelong fascination with the Irishmen who served the Pope in defending the Papal States during the war of Italian unification in the 19th Century, which had lead him to do extended research on the subject for his newly published book. As a child I was fascinated with two war medals that my grandfather…
Vending machines can be corrosive to children’s health, writes Davis Clark Evolutionarily speaking, human beings aren’t built to resist easy doses of glucose, hence the proliferation of fast food restaurants all over the rich world. With a slew of fast food chains available in pretty much every major city, it can be difficult to…
More than 6,700 Catholic women religious are among those helping more than 1 million people taking shelter in relief camps after unprecedented floods ravaged Kerala state in southwest India. “This is the biggest rescue and relief operation the Catholic Church in Kerala has undertaken in its history,” said Fr George Vettikattil, who heads the Church’s…
A church in Cork was filled with applause and tears on Sunday after baby shoes were placed on the altar to commemorate the victims and survivors of clerical abuse. Canon David Herlihy said he proposed the commemoration ceremony that took place in St Mary’s Parish Church in Youghal after members of the Standing4Women movement had…
Reproduce St Joseph’s ‘ideal of service’ Pope tells Oblates Pope Francis told the Oblates of St Joseph that for decades he has relied on the intercession of St Joseph, and “never, ever has he told me ‘no’”. “We should draw courage from this,” the Pope said on August 31 as he met with members of the order’s general chapter. “For more than 40…
Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson. £15.99 / €17) Peter Hegarty Faulks’ explores the German occupation (1940-44), a closed subject in France for decades after the wars. That those years were off-limits for so long shows that “the human drive to ignorance…is a force as powerful as its opposite”, as Hannah, one of the two main…
Youth Space Liam Linden recounts the transformative power of visiting Fatima Utter brilliance. Eye opening. Challenging. Encouraging and enlightening. These were some of the words used by our pilgrims to describe the Armagh Diocesan Youth Commission’s (ADYC) recent summer pilgrimage to Fatima. Describing my experience with ADYC would be a similar choice of words…