Staff Reporter Growth and decline are top of the agenda for the Irish bishops’ meetings with the Pope and senior Vatican officials next week, according to Archbishop Eamon Martin. This weekend sees Ireland’s bishops travelling to Rome for their first formal collective visit to the Vatican in over 10 years, with fewer than half the…
Oak jubilee for Glenstal monk
Glenstal Abbey’s oldest monk has celebrated 80 years as a professed religious. Fr Placid Murray, who is 98 years old and currently lives in a nursing home in Newport, Co. Tipperary, returned to the Limerick monastery to celebrate the Oak Jubilee of his first profession, which he made on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1937.…
Being winter ready
Sisters Sky and Willow Shaw at the launch of the Under the Weather Campaign. Information on a wide range of common conditions like colds, flu and tummy bugs, is available at www.undertheweather.ie from the HSE and health professionals, for adults and children. Photo: Photocall Ireland
News in Brief
Adoration chapel in Fermoy restored St Patrick’s Church, Fermoy, Co. Cork has unveiled its newly refurbished adoration chapel. In a project aimed at reversing wear to support beams in the chapel, a full programme of work was undertaken to reverse the site’s previous layout to offer better use of four stained glass windows. In addition…
Belfast 4 Corners Festival
The Belfast 4 Corners Festival will take place this year from February 3 to 12, under the theme ‘Our Wounded & Wonderful City’. The event comprises innovative events aimed at encouraging people to go beyond the ‘corners’ of their own neighbourhoods towards discovering new ideas and friends. The 4 Corners Festival was established by a…
Pope criticises clericalist mind-sets in homily
Pope Francis has criticised the ‘clericalist’ attitude as “hypocritical” and at odds with Jesus’ example of serving the people of God. In a homily delivered in Casa Santa Marta on January 10, the Pontiff said the attitude communicated by Christ was that “of a servant, and this gave authority…Jesus did not have an allergy to…
Death of one of Ireland’s greatest servants
Former Irish economist and public servant TK Whittaker (left), who died this week aged 100, pictured with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Seamus Mallon, former deputy leader of the SDLP, at a function in Mr Whittaker’s honour last year.
Pope Francis announces prayer intention for the homeless
Pope Francis has issued an ‘urgent action’ prayer intention for the month of January, naming the homeless during the continuing cold weather sweeping Europe. “During these very cold days,” he said, “I think of and I invite you to think of all the people who live on the streets, affected by the cold and many…
Heroic priest play set for American debut
A play about the heroic Irish priest Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty is set for its first overseas performances God Has No Country, by Kerry actor and playwright Donal Courtney about the Rome-based World War Two priest, will be performed in Rochester, New York and Penn State University, Pennsylvania in March and April. There have been proposals…
Death in contemporary Ireland is a complex matter
Dr Kevin Myers Most Irish people continue to believe in life after death but many don’t see the Church as the only path to salvation, writes Dr Kevin Myers “Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.” Penned by John Donne, this sonnet verse proclaims man’s…