The religious sisters at the centre of controversy surrounding the Tuam Mother and Baby Home feel unable to comment on the issue due to legal constraints, The Irish Catholic understands. Recent revelations about the excavation of a general grave at St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home have been commented on both by Archbishop Michael Neary…
The financial situation of Dublin’s Central Catholic Library has improved dramatically since library members voted against a plan to place the library in the care of Dublin City University. The rejection of the plan last September was followed by the resignation of a third of the library’s board, who said the library had unsustainable annual…
Greg Daly learns about a new project for music and liturgy in Dublin’s city centre “I don’t think the archbishop asked us here to maintain the status quo,” says Steven Warner, associate director of the Notre Dame Newman Centre, based since last autumn at the University Church on Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green. “I can’t speak…
The advantages of social media as a tool for evangelisation or – arguably – an environment in which evangelisation can take place are discussed on a regular basis nowadays, but the difficulties of maintaining a coherent, timely and appropriate social media presence aren’t always acknowledged. This was demonstrated all too sharply last weekend, when the…
The decision by Wexford General Hospital to remove the word ‘saint’ from its ward signs has been described as “disappointing” by the local bishop, questioning a tendency to suppress references to religious belief in Ireland’s public life. The hospital revised the ward names after it drew down funding for improved signage after opening a new…
Leading child protection campaigner Marie Collins has challenged claims by the head of the Vatican department responsible for dealing with allegations of clerical abuse. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), had rejected claims by Mrs Collins that members of the CDF had obstructed proposals for reform recommended…
Greg Daly considers the Tuam burials in light of contemporary funeral customs If we are to be horrified by what we are learning about the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, we should probably reserve our anger more for how the infant children of unmarried mothers were treated in life than in death. The Mother and…
School chaplaincy and pastoral support teams have a key role to play in protecting Irish adolescents’ mental health, it has been claimed. Speaking to The Irish Catholic ahead of the 2017 Self-Harm Awareness Conference, held in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium yesterday (March 1) Capuchin Bro. Martin Bennett said the conference’s focus was on adolescents. “Mental health…
Brexit must not affect freedom of movement on the island of Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin has said. The Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland expressed concerns about the threat Britain’s vote to leave the European Union would pose to cross-border movement in Ireland, and said the country’s bishops want guarantees that Brexit will not…
Greg Daly considers some aspects of Cardinal Connell’s handling of the abuse crisis “He was criticised at times for being less than diplomatic,” said Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in his homily during the funeral Mass for his predecessor Cardinal Desmond Connell, “just as I am criticised for being over diplomatic.” It will have been an…