Irish bishops have been working with their British counterparts to protect the rights of Irish people in Britain, following the country’s decision to leave the European Union. Liam Allmark, public affairs manager for the Bishops Conference of England and Wales, told The Irish Catholic that Bishop Nicholas Hudson, an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of…
Discussions about Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on love and the family, even if they have not set ordinary parishes ablaze have, at least in certain circles, been characterised far more by heat than by light, especially since last September. That month saw Pope Francis respond to draft guidelines from the bishops of Buenos Aires…
Even those who do not belong to the Church understand that Pope Francis wishes to set in place a real renewal of the Church and they wish him well. What inspires Pope Francis in his desire for renewal? There is a danger that each person would try to impose their own idea which may well…
The drumbeat has grown incessant in recent months: religious congregations, we are told time and time again, agreed to pay half the cost of the State’s redress scheme for those who lived in industrial schools and similar institutions, and have not done so. Technically, it is admitted, they only legally agreed to pay €128 million,…
The bells of St Brigid’s Church in Ballintrillick, Co. Sligo, rang 108 times to mark the funeral of Ireland’s oldest person last week, with each chime marking a year of her life. Elizabeth Gallagher, who was buried on March 28, became the oldest person in Ireland last December, and was “very proud” of the fact,…
Pope Francis’ decision to switch Vatican oversight for shrines and sanctuaries to the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation has been welcomed by the priests who run Ireland’s principal shrines. Until this weekend, shrines and sanctuaries came under the jurisdiction of the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, but on Saturday, April 1, the Pope transferred them…
There was a congregation of over 2000 at a special Mass at Knock Shrine held last Sunday to mark Organ Donor Awareness Week 2017 (1-8 April). The inaugural service was a celebration for organ donors and transplant recipients and was led by Fr Richard Gibbons, in the newly refurbished Basilica. The chief organiser of this…
‘Ireland’s Outcast’ was the headline on the front page of last week’s Catholic Herald, prominently and admirably flagged across social media ahead of publication as is usual. Below the headline was a picture of Ireland’s then outgoing papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, and the tagline: ‘The nation’s respected nuncio has been sent to Albania. Jon…
Faith and reason go hand in hand, a leading apologist tells Greg Daly Fresh from a public debate at Trinity College Dublin, where 600 students overflowed from the college’s largest lecture theatre and filled three overflow rooms while a further 1,100 people watched online, philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig is adamant that Christian faith…
Greg Daly meets a Tearfund ‘early responder’ on the frontline of crises in the Philippines Originally from Manila, 37-year-old Dandin Espina had always thought he’d be a minister in his Church, the Pentecostal Church of God, but God, he says, had other plans. “I was in seminary,” he says. “I had thought I’d be a pastor, but…