A group of 22 TDs and Senators has called on the Government to recognise as genocide ISIS’s persecution of minority communities including Iraqi and Syrian Christians and Yazidis. In a letter drafted by The Iona Institute, Aid to the Church in Need and Church in Chains, the politicians urge the Minister for Foreign Affairs and…
Fr Dominic McGrattan, in the background, serves food at St Patrick’s Church, Donegall Street in Belfast after a Mass of Hope for the city’s homeless community. A soup kitchen will operate at the church every Friday and Saturday night from 7-11pm. Photo: The Irish News
A Co. Tyrone priest has given his phone number out from the church altar at a teenagers’ funeral, in a direct appeal to young people in need to seek help. Fr Daniel McFaul told mourners at St Mary’s Church in Killyclogher that Elle Trowbridge was “a young and beautiful lady…who was caught in the live…
Staff Reporter Marie Collins’ first training event for Vatican officials since her resignation from Pope Francis’ child protection commission was “encouraging” and “very positive”, the leading advocate has said. Mrs Collins announced her resignation in February from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, citing frustration with obstructive curial officials. Despite this, she joined…
Government demands that schools reduce uniform costs to ease parents’ financial pressures have been criticised as reactive and unacceptable micro-management by the president of the body which represents faith-based schools in Ireland. Speaking at the AMCSS/JMB annual general meeting in Killarney, Fr Paul Connell said the planned changes would do “little or nothing to reduce…
Dear Editor, Greg Daly’s article on the so-called ‘Citizens’ Assembly’ – ‘Unrepresentative advice from an unrepresentative body’ (IC 27/04/2017) – is illustrated by a picture of the gathered group of citizens and a sheet showing the result of one of the ballots conducted by the assembly. The ballot, considering the question of whether abortion should…
Felix M. Larkin Ireland: The Autobiography – One hundred years in the life of the nation, told by its people ed. by John Bowman (Penguin Ireland, €25/£20) Shakespeare’s stage Irishman in Henry V, Captain Macmorris, famously asks “What ish my nation?” He answers his own question with these words: “Ish a villain, and a bastard,…
Fr Vincent Sherlock Nobody was as surprised as myself. Ed Sheeran was playing his second concert in Croke Park and the reviews of the first concert were incredible. I thought about what a positive influence Ed had been in the lives of 160,000 plus people over two nights. My being there, I thought, had some…
World Without End, by Thomas Keating OCSO and Joseph Boyle, with Lucette Verboven (Bloomsbury, £10.99) The author, a Trappist monk of the community at St Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, is already well known as a spiritual writer. His earlier books, Open Mind, Open Heart and The Mystery of Christ are familiar to many. He…
The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion. A Book of Daily Devotion, edited by Lisa Hendey and Sarah A. Reinhard (Ave Maria Press, $16.95; available online) There cannot be these days a more harassed set of people than the Catholic mothers of the world. This book is as the title suggests, of North American origin. That said…