Seven sets of human remains that likely belong to infants have been discovered at the site of the former Mother and Baby Institution in Tuam, Co. Galway, according to the Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention, ODAIT. In an update released this morning, November 7, the report states: “forensic experts also confirmed that seven…
Bishop Tom Deenihan of Meath- Ireland’s third largest diocese- has issued a wide-ranging pastoral letter, Future of Our Parishes: Communities of Belonging and Evangelisation, calling for renewed vitality and cooperation among parishes as they face demographic change, fewer priests, and the need for deeper evangelisation. He also reassures parishes that closures or mergers are not being…
Twenty Dublin priests and the Archbishop prayed for peace in the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Nagasaki, Japan on November 4. In his homily the Archbishop Dermot Farrell said “One cannot come to this place, this Cathedral, and the church of which it is the centre, without thinking of the horrific suffering that was inflicted on the…
It was early in the morning, when Sister Stanislaus Kennedy — Sr Stan to the nation — was called home. Also early that same morning, Louise Bayliss of the Society of St Vincent de Paul spoke on national radio about the hardship gripping single-parent families as winter closes in. She described how energy poverty is…
Baroness Nuala O’Loan has said that the Catholic Church leadership can do more to promote the work of justice across the island. Speaking to The Irish Catholic she said “a lot more can be done to encourage Catholics into policing, the aim of which is to protect people and property from harm, something which is…
“Over 200,000 people left the comfort of their own home and spoiled their votes purposefully in order to register a protest against how the presidential election was run” Aontu’s Peadar Tóibín has told this paper In total, he said, “317,000 people either spoiled their votes or voted for a withdrawn candidate. Spoiled votes even “beat…
Former President of Ireland Mary McAleese read a short reflection at the Requiem masses for Fr Dermod McCarthy in Dalkey and Ballinamore on October 24 and 25, 2025. Fr McCarthy who died recently aged 83 was the former head of religious programming at RTÉ and a member of the Radharc film crew in the 1960’s…
When the Catholic University of America’s National Study of Catholic Priests released its 2025 follow-up report this month, one statistic leapt off the page: younger priests are both more conservative and more lonely. It’s a statistic that speaks volumes not just about the American Church, but also about our own here in Ireland as we…
Irish Jesuit theologian Fr Gerry O’Hanlon and former member of the Synod’s organising team said he left the Kilkenny Synodal Assembly on October 18th “strangely flat and disappointed,” noting that “the fire and elation of Athlone in 2022 were conspicuous by their absence.” He asks: “What had gone on? It is as if we were…
Two major gatherings last week — the Pre-Synodal Assembly in Kilkenny and the Researchers in Catholic Education Conference at Marino Institute — offered snapshots of a Church in motion: hopeful, energetic, and sincere, yet still wrestling with its deeper anxieties. Both spoke of renewal. Both faced the same unspoken question: does the Irish Church have…