Baroness Nuala O’Loan has called for the Holy See to review what is happening to Catholics in China, citing human rights abuses, religious repression and the case of an underground Church priest she says was killed for his ministry. Writing exclusively in this paper Ms O’Loan states: “The 2018 Agreement [between China and the Holy…
The outgoing Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland has said he has witnessed “an intense, hidden vitality” in Irish parishes and dioceses especially in the West and the North of Ireland and has “no doubt” it will bear visible fruit in the synodal process and in a resurgence of vocations to the ministerial and religious life. In…
A Catholic priest has warned that Irish people are increasingly abandoning the practice of their faith not through open defiance, but through a “quiet indifference” that leaves them comfortable, untroubled, and unaware of what they are losing. Fr Robert Mc Namara, writing in a reflection for The Irish Catholic, said that after more than 30 years…
Comments come ahead of meeting with Taoiseach as European Council President Two of Ireland’s most prominent bishops have insisted that human dignity is not something conferred by governments, constitutions or public opinion — but a gift from God that precedes and outlasts any human decision to recognise it. The bishops made the comments ahead of…
The Irish Church does not do managed decline. It never has. It lets the clock run down, keeps the show on the road for one more season, and then eventually presents the result — a parish has to be merged or a college closed, the community and or staff quietly told the numbers have run…
A 2025 Limerick diocesan consultation drew 3,000 people and real energy — but Bishop Brendan Leahy in releasing the findings this week says renewal will fail unless far more parishioners step forward, and dig deep to support their parishes. It’s an all too familiar message and one that the Dublin Archdiocese also has had to…
A process of consultations with Bishops and faithful is expected to begin in the coming months to ascertain the appetite for several proposals for unions (or amalgamations) of dioceses in Ireland. The main consultations, this paper believes, are concerning the proposal that Clogher Diocese would amalgamate with Kilmore and Cloyne with Cork. However, it is…
Over 100 leading EU law and policy experts were in the West of Ireland recently for the European People’s Party (EPP) Group’s Summer University – the group to which Fine Gael belongs. Fine Gael MEP for the North West, Maria Walsh, said she was delighted to welcome the group to the West of Ireland and…
The results of the Limerick diocese’s 2025 consultation released this week tells it again what its own documents have been saying since 2016 and earlier consultations before that, going back to the 1990’s. The deeper question is whether listening, however sincere, has become a substitute for decision-making. There is a moment near the end of…
“How can Ireland call itself a civilised society today?” Baroness Nuala O’Loan has asked, echoing the words of Pope Leo in his address to the Spanish Parliament this week. The Pope asked what future can our societies have if life ceases to be recognised as a fundamental value, and if a community leaves in the…