Online Advent calendar launched Archbishop Eamon Martin has launched a specially commissioned 2015 Advent calendar on the homepage of the Irish Catholic bishops’ website www.catholicbishops.ie to coincide with the beginning of Advent on Sunday, November 29. The online calendar will each day reveal Advent information and prayer resources, including an audio thought for the day, by clicking on a virtual…

This year’s Christmas stamp from An Post features a beautiful detail of the Madonna and Child by Marco Palmezzano, courtesy of the National Gallery and designed by Vermillion Design.  The latest date for posting standard mail for Ireland is December 21, Europe is December 19, USA on December 11 and the rest of the world…

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin celebrated the annual Mass for the dead for the fruit and vegetable markets and Moore Street traders in Halston Street Parish in Dublin last Friday. Photo: John McElroy

A plaque is to be erected in the Vatican to honour World War II hero Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty on May 8 next year. The Kerry priest is believed to have been responsible for saving 6,500 POWs and civilians during the war. “The plaque will be erected on the wall of the Teutonicum, the Vatican’s German…

A member of the Carabinieri, the Italian military police force, stands guard as people leave Pope Francis’ Angelus blessing in St Peter’s Square, where security has been ramped up following the November 13 terrorist attack in Paris. Photo: CNS

American bishops have approved a formal statement on pornography and confirmed additions to their quadrennial statement on political responsibility. In the public portion of the November 16-19 autumn general meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the gathered bishops voted 210-21 with five abstentions for the 2015 version of their political responsibility document,…

Pope Francis has called on Germany’s bishops to use the upcoming Holy Year of Mercy to offer Catholics a chance to “rediscover the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist”. During their ad limina visit to Rome, the bishops were handed an address from the Pope in which he noted a steep decline in sacramental participation…

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has announced its support for Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who have been indicted by the Vatican, along with three others, for the crime of disseminating secret documents. “By writing Avarizia [Avarice] and Via Crucis [published in English as Merchants in the Temple] Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano…

Vincentians call for end of APEC More than 500 protesters in Manila, including dozens of Catholic religious and other Christians, have called for the abolition of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. On the 21-country summit’s last day, protestors gathered and cried, “junk-junk APEC!” over and over.  “I represent the Church stance of calling our leaders of our country not…

It is “a big lie” to suggest Islamic State could be defeated with airstrikes, according to the head of the Syriac Catholic Church, who has accused Western governments of betraying Christians in the Middle East. “All Eastern patriarchs, myself included, have spoken out clearly to the West from the very beginning,” Syriac Patriarch Ignace Joseph…