Claims by former President Mary McAleese that St John Paul II refused to shake hands with her when they first met are contradicted by eyewitness reports, The Irish Catholic can reveal. Speaking last week at an event hosted by the Irish American Partnership in Boston, Mrs McAleese said the then Pope John shook her husband…
A vision of community life for today’s dedicated Christians isn’t about taking to the hills, Rod Dreher tells Greg Daly “How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages?” asked GK Chesterton in 1908’s Orthodoxy, answering his rhetorical question with the observation that “The Church was the…
A forced-adoption subplot in RTÉ’s new drama about the War of Independence is an example of an “astonishing” lack of balance in Irish public debate about historical relations between Church and State, it has been claimed. Stressing the importance of investigating and honestly facing the darker aspects of Church history, Fr Conor McDonough OP lamented…
The creation of a new lay body within the Church is an attempt to live out Vatican II, writes Greg Daly The transfer this January 1 of services run by the Brothers of St John of God to a Church lay body has been a long time coming, according to the provincial of the…
Consistency, accountability and concrete commitments to global implementation of safeguarding policies should be priorities for next month’s Vatican assembly of the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences, child protection campaigner Marie Collins has said. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Mrs Collins said: “I think they have to come out of the meeting with something concrete,…
Papal comments on the importance of countries working together “resonate strongly” with Ireland’s foreign policy, the Irish ambassador to the Holy See has said. Monday saw Pope Francis address members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Vatican, warning that the re-emergence of populist and nationalist ideologies is threatening the stability of international organisations and…
The very first Web Watch I wrote highlighted an unusual site, thenewemangelization.com, about “drawing men to Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church” and running an interview with Cardinal Raymond Burke, who claimed the Church has become too feminised, with “the goodness and importance” of men being obscured. Catholicism does tend to be practiced more assiduously…
The American group who led Ireland’s largest women’s retreat last year have said they will return to Ireland this year and feel they have more work to do in the country. Highlighting the importance of links built with the Irish co-ordinators of November’s retreat, which saw 250 women gathering at the Emmaus Centre in Swords,…
The death penalty is a rejection of the Gospel and human dignity, Pope Francis has said, and must be rejected by all countries. Meeting with delegates from the International Commission against the Death Penalty, the Pope said capital punishment persists as a lingering value of times when “the instruments available to us for the protection…
Even for those who don’t know his name, few artists in today’s Ireland are more closely linked with Christmas than Belfast-born PJ Lynch, recently the country’s fourth Children’s Laureate but perhaps best known to readers of The Irish Catholic for his work on the mosaic of Knock Basilica. 2016 and 2017 saw his delicate watercolours…