“The Synod is watering the garden, but the house is on fire.” That is not The Irish Catholic talking. It is the verdict of an experienced parish priest in the Diocese of Kildare & Leighlin, a man who supports the synodal pathway and has given years to it, speaking after this summer’s appointments were announced.…
Our contributor Fr Kieran O’Mahony OSA – readers will know him through his Hearers of the Word section in this paper – was buried last Friday at seventy-five, after an illness, and the tributes that followed called him what he was: a gifted teacher of Scripture, an Augustinian who spent decades making biblical texts breathe…
10 million children will die by 2030 because of aid cuts Extreme poverty in the world could have been ended had the USA and other countries not reversed their oversees aid policies in 2025, the head of the charity and NGO Trócaire has said. Sean Farrell, who took up the position of CEO of Trócaire…
A parish priest has called for better communication between clergy, undertakers and parishioners after an experience that left him questioning whether ministry is drifting from relational to transactional. Writing in his Notebook column for The Irish Catholic, Fr Martin Delaney describes visiting a woman in his parish monthly for several years, bringing her Communion, and attending…
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…