People who are morally opposed to abortion should never be legally forced to take part in a procedure that would end a life according to Bishop Kevin Doran. The suggestion that it could be a healthcare professional’s duty to take a life is “totally strange” and “is in so much conflict with what healthcare is…
In this week’s issue of The Irish Catholic, Sacred Heart Missionary Fr Vincent Screene explains why returning to Venezuela is so important to him
The Irish Church has done little to counter the dramatic negative effects of secularism on younger Catholics’ understanding of their faith, Baroness Nuala O’Loan has said. She warned that people who have been preparing children for First Holy Communion and Confirmation “have been aware for quite a while that the wider cultural shift away from…
Catholic addiction counsellors and organisations are warning that unregulated online gambling is causing children to become problem gamblers in later life, in a phenomenon that could escalate. Young people of any age can access gambling websites with the tick of a box that ‘proves’ they’re 18. Games can be played online for free but players…
Concerns have been raised after it emerged the Church of Ireland (CoI) is a shareholder in the holding company behind NAMA, with a priest saying he would hate to think that the Church would profit from peoples’ misfortune. In an answer to a parliamentary question Finance Minister Pascal Donohue revealed that the Representative Church Body…
Catholic charities have welcomed aspects of Budget 2018 but there were many “opportunities missed” with emphasise on housing and education. An increase of €5 to social welfare payments including the State pension, a Christmas bonus of 85%, a €20 increase for lone parents and the Jobseekers’ Transitional Scheme were said to be good steps, but…
Ireland’s most-senior Churchman is to address some of the major challenges facing Catholic schools in a major conference on education later this month. Archbishop Eamon Martin will be the keynote speaker at the Dublin conference on October 26 on the theme ‘Where now for faith-based education? Charting the future together’. The conference will look at…
Teachers need to be assisted in learning how to integrate refugee children who have experienced trauma into Irish schools, according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI). Commenting on a British initiative which saw teachers in Northern Ireland sent to German schools in order to learn from their integration techniques Sr Stan, the founder of…
In the last two weeks 220 young people from two Irish diocese collected the Pope John Paul II Awards (JPII) for work in their parish and community. The Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, assisted Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan in awarding 133 students from schools across the diocese of Waterford and Lismore. Archbishop Okolo thanked the…
A Catholic Bishop has railed against alcohol lobbyist tactics which threaten the arts and leisure industry in reaction to a new alcohol bill that is now priority legislation in the Dáil, saying sports thrive regardless of their sponsorship. Bishop Eamonn Walsh, vice chair of the Irish Bishops’ Drugs Initiative, said he had to admire the…