Sean Finlay Sean Finlay recounts a once in a lifetime trip to experience Zambian culture The Zambian Immersion Project at St Mary’s CBS, Portlaoise, offers 16 students a coveted once in a lifetime opportunity to experience Zambian culture first-hand through deeply enriching work in schools, orphanages and health clinics over an unforgettable two weeks. Our…
John Wyse Jackson Molly Keane: A Life by Sally Phipps (Virago, £20) The writer Molly Keane was born in 1904 in Co. Kildare, a daughter of Moira O’Neill, the poet of the Glens of Antrim. She grew up in a horsey, Protestant family near Ferns, Co. Wexford, in an 18th-Century house that was burned in…
Fr Vincent Sherlock Two days before the celebration of Confirmation in our parish we gathered for a short practice. I looked at the group of 38 boys and girls preparing for Confirmation (as an aside, the 38, typical, I would say, of many parishes like my own, represent the total number of pupils in senior…
In recent years apparitions at Kibeho in Rwanda and Champion, in the US state of Wisconsin, have been approved by their diocesan bishops, the former having taken place in 1981-1982, the latter in 1859. Despite devotion on a vast scale, alleged apparitions at Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been rejected by local bishops. Major Marian sites…
Fr Dwight Longenecker Rational explanations for Fatima admit the supernatural, argues Fr Dwight Longenecker Atheists love to mock miracles, and the miracle of the Sun at Fatima is one of their favourite objects of derision. The high priest of the atheists, Richard Dawkins dismisses the miracle of the Sun as a mass hallucination. He writes…
There is a great need for “prayer and penance” to plead for the end of the many wars spreading all over the world and the many “absurd conflicts” that “disfigure the face of humanity”, Pope Francis has said. Referring to the canonisation of Ss Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto in Fatima, he said that the…
Ambar Calvo, a 20-year-old student of architecture at the University of Panama, was the winner of the competition among 103 entries for the next World Youth Day logo, to be held in Panama from January 22-27, 2019. Msgr José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta, Archbishop of Panama, said the design managed to capture the message the country…
Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Djibouti has urged the international community to focus on alleviating the drought in Somalia, as six million people experience severe food shortages and contend with the al-Shabab extremist group. Bishop Bertin expressed fear that the country may slip into a famine if action was delayed. “The Somali government, international community and…
Church leaders in Indonesia have criticised the government for using the country’s drugs problem as an excuse for rejecting the UN recommendation to abolish the death penalty. The recommendation, put forward at the 27th session of the UN Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, which reviewed Indonesia’s human rights situation, was rejected by Law and Human…
Dear Editor, Fr Eugene Duffy and the staff of Mary Immaculate College are to be congratulated on organising a seminar entitled ‘Reimagining Sacramental Preparation’. Up to the present, our evangelising was based on a very simple strategy. The parents had the Faith and practiced it as a family and as part of the parish community.…