Parishes have been urged to look out for the elderly and vulnerable during the cold spell, and use Church structures to boost rural solidarity. Raphoe’s Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ called on people coming to Christmas services to think of their neighbours and perhaps offer them a lift to Mass during poor weather, telling The Irish Catholic:…
Amnesty International has been accused of arrogance on a “grand scale” following a vow that the group will not comply with an order from the State’s ethics watchdog to return a donation from a US-based pro-abortion lobby. The Irish section of Amnesty revealed late last week that the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) has…
Amnesty Ireland has refused a demand to return €137,000 donated by an American billionaire so it could campaign against Ireland’s pro-life laws. The November 17 instruction from the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) comes almost exactly a year after the ethics watchdog directed the Abortion Rights Campaign to return its grant, originally worth almost…
The Brexit impasse over the border and the North needs to be overcome as a matter of urgency, Bishop Donal McKeown has said. Bishop McKeown’s comments followed the breakdown of EU-UK talks after Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party rejected a plan for Northern Ireland to retain “regulatory alignment” with the Republic, thus effectively retaining the…
The Oireachtas committee on repealing Ireland’s constitutional protections for unborn children had focused minds ahead of this year’s Pro Life Campaign annual conference, according to a PLC spokesperson who said those at the attendance had left feeling “very buoyed up”. “I think the fact that there was such a great attendance at this time of…
The body representing Catholic primary schools throughout Ireland has called on the Government to review how schools are funded, following the delayed payment this weeks of grants that were due last month. “The late payment of the Minor Works Grant has caused a great deal of unease in schools,” Catholic Primary Schools Management Association head…
Luke Silke and Greg Daly Former residents of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home have rejected what they see as attempts to use controversy surrounding the home to promote legislation permitting wider access to abortion in Ireland. One former resident, a prominent campaigner for the full story of Tuam to emerge, told The Irish Catholic that he…
Prayers offered for the protection of life About 30,000 people gathered at almost 300 locations for last weekend’s ‘Rosary on the Coast’ initiative, organisers believe. Based on figures from groups around the country, it looks like the event was a huge success, according to pro-life campaigner and former MEP Kathy Sinnott. “Between a quarter and…
Government failures to settle refugees are not surprising, but a new scheme gives the Church the opportunity to step up and help, a leading priest has said. “It’s not surprising the system they’ve had in place is failing because it lacked a vision underpinning it about what integration is,” Fr Alan Hilliard told The Irish…
The squabbles about Amoris Laetitia continue to rumble on, with Dan Hitchens, deputy editor of England’s The Catholic Herald observing from his Twitter account @ddhitchens that “Rocco Buttiglione, one of the leading critics of traditional teaching on the sacraments, has collected his articles into a book”, and directing followers to his firstthings.com “critique” from August…