Making the sign of the cross is to mark ourselves as Christians, and it is something we should do often to remind ourselves that we belong to God, Pope Francis said today. “The cross is the badge that shows who we are: our speaking, thinking, looking, working [we are] under the sign of the cross,…
Katie Ascough speaks to The Irish Catholic at the launch of the LoveBoth campaign here in Dublin today.
Episode 10 of The Irish Catholic Podcast brings John Quinn into conversation with Wendy Grace & Dominic Perrem of Spirit Radio. Ahead of the World Meeting of Families, now is the time for parishes to be thinking about ways of engaging with young families. This episode looks at some practical ways parishes can create an…
Pope Francis has apologised for underestimating the seriousness of the sexual abuse crisis in Chile following a recent investigation into allegations concerning Osorno’s Bishop Juan Barros. In a letter to the country’s bishops, the Pope said he made “serious mistakes in the assessment and perception of the situation, especially due to a lack of truthful…
Any remaining properties promised by religious orders under the redress scheme for victims of abuse should be handed over to the State in advance of the Pope’s visit this August, members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have said. This comes after a report by the Dáil committee criticising the Department of Education’s approach to…
A conference later this month addressed by a former Vatican ambassador and an acclaimed biographer of Pope Francis will hear calls for Irish Catholics to stand up for their Faith. Entitled ‘How to Defend the Faith Without Raising Your Voice’, the conference which will be held in the Red Cow Hotel on Saturday, April 28,…
Martin Mansergh The View The political history of 20th-Century Ireland is book-ended between the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. These descriptions are very evidently linked symbolically to key events in the Christian calendar. Pearse’s writings leading up to the Rising are suffused with religious metaphor, for which he was notably…
The contribution of Fr Alec Reid and others to the Peace Process needs to be recognised, Mattie McGrath TD has said. Speaking at the General Liam Lynch Memorial in Newcastle, Co. Tipperary, the independent TD urged the Government and Fianna Fáil to highlight those who seem excluded from current political debates around the Good Friday…
The Mexican bishops’ conference criticised US President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border and issued a strong defence of migrants, saying the Catholic Church could not stand by “in the face of suffering by our brother migrants as they seek better conditions”. The letter, addressed to people in Mexico,…
Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (Penguin Ireland, €16) Peter Hegarty In a congenial, fascinating book neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blackmore explores the wondrous malleability of the human brain. The brain is continually changing and adapting. If I took up juggling, the part of my brain that co-ordinates the movement of my…