Pat O’Kelly Among a number of anniversaries, this year commemorates two distinct and unrelated centenaries – Estonian Independence and the birth of the US composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. Both events are being highlighted at the National Concert Hall next week through the return of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) on January 31 and the…
Catholics in Belgium are concerned the country’s euthanasia law is being abused to kill patients without legal checks and safeguards. Auxiliary Bishop Jean Kockerols of Mechelen-Brussels said “not just the Church’s hierarchy, but doctors and medical professionals as well” were concerned. The Belgian Church’s Cathobel news agency published an article saying the Federal Euthanasia Control…
The View Martin Mansergh January may be the beginning of a new year. Mostly, it feels like a return to base camp, with life stripped back to its essentials and nature relatively bare. It is a month to be endured. Warmth is comfort; coldness and damp is living in misery. January also tends to…
The vice president of the German bishops’ conference has urged a debate on whether Catholic clergy should bless same-sex unions. “I’m concerned with fundamental questions of how we deal with each other; although ‘marriage for all’ differs clearly from the Church’s concept of marriage, it’s now a political reality,” said Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabruck.…
In Brief Right-wing Hindu students clashed with police in central India after they tried to storm a Catholic-run college to conduct a Hindu religious rite, according to Church sources. About 800 students from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) group were charged by police after trying to gain access to St Mary’s College in…
A Chinese priest involved with the country’s underground Catholic Church has been missing ever since government officials took him just after Christmas for “re-educating”. Fr Lu Danhua of Lishui Diocese of China’s eastern Zhejiang province was the only priest of the diocese, and took over from Kenneth Roderick Turner of Scarboro Foreign Mission Society from 1948…
The Vatican has named a Colombian bishop to be the trustee of the scandal-plagued Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Catholic movement based in Peru. The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life appointed Bishop Noel Londono Buitrago of Jerico, Colombia, trustee of the group, the Vatican press office announced. Pope Francis, the…
A group of bishops from around the world is visiting the Holy Land to remind Christians there that they are not forgotten by their fellow Christians, Derry’s Bishop Donal McKeown has said. Bishop McKeown is visiting Israel and the Palestinian Territories as part of an international delegation of bishops from Europe, North America and Africa.…
In Brief Church leaders in the Middle East are intensifying efforts to combat US President Donald Trump’s decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as plans to move the US embassy there. “The two-state solution is accepted by all the world, including the Vatican. It corresponds to the legitimate resolutions passed by…
News In Brief Ireland has won the ‘Arms Control Person of the Year’ 2017 award for the Government’s leadership during talks relating to disarmament. The disarmament delegation of Ireland won the award for their leadership during the negotiations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney…