The winners of The Irish Catholic competition for tickets to hear Philip Scott sing in the National Concert Hall on October 4 are Brid Dillon from Ennis, Co. Clare, and Pamela Doyle, from Terenure, Dublin 12. Philip Scott will be singing the songs of Count John McCormack.

Pope Francis at UN has laid down challenge to world leaders to urgently respond to those living in poverty and facing injustice, writes Trócaire’s Éamonn Meehan

Lisette Carr went to the US and heard the Pope invigorate a whole generation

Coup leaders agree to restore power to deposed Burkina Faso leader Leaders of a September 16 coup in Burkina Faso are to restore to power the deposed president Michel Kafando. The army and the Régiment Sécurité Présidentielle (RSP) have agreed that the latter should withdraw from their positions in the capital city Ouagadougou, while the…

The Filipino Church will continue to stand with the country’s tribal communities who are victims of abuse, persecution, and extrajudicial killings, according to Manila’s auxiliary bishop Broderick Pabillo. Dr Pabillo had been asked to “actively intervene to end the militarisation of the areas where the tribal communities live”, and for the Church to facilitate the…

The Melkite Archbishop of Aleppo has described the exodus of Christians from the Middle East as apparently “apocalyptic and fatal”. Insisting that he remains confident because of his trust in God’s promises, Metropolitan Jean-Clément Jeanbart described the “exodus of Christians” as “a form of deportation, condemning our faithful to a humiliating exile and our 2000-year-old…

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has been dropped from a criminal investigation. An Italian investigating judge has ruled that the Vatican’s lead organiser of Philadelphia’s World Meeting of Families had been “completely un-involved” in a scheme to buy and then profit from the sale of a 14th-century Italian castle.…

An ecumenical pilgrimage of Catholics, Anglicans, and other Christians by the border between North and South Korea has prayed for peace and reconciliation on the divided peninsula. The pilgrimage, organised by the Taizé Community, celebrated vespers at Paju’s Church of Repentance and Atonement near Panmunjeom, the village on the 38th parallel where the 1953 Korean…

Pope Francis has called the cover-up of abuse by bishops a “terrible thing”, explaining that this was why he had earlier in Philadelphia said that “the crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must no longer be held in secret”, pledging “the promise of accountability for all”. The Pope was speaking during an…

Catechesis and evangelisation are vocations for all Christians, an Indian catechetics conference has been told. Opening the conference in Chennai, at which the National Catechetical Directory was presented, Simdega’s Bishop Vincent Barwa said: “A Christian has a big heart, ready to bring the message of salvation to every corner of the world. We ask God…