Irish parishes should be more active in tackling Ireland’s Direct Provision system, a priest with long experience of dealing with migrant communities has said.  Recalling how such systems were first introduced in Australia to deter immigration, and observing that it hasn’t worked, Fr Alan Hilliard told The Irish Catholic that parishes should do more to…

The Government’s plans to tackle homelessness do not do enough to address the issue of family homelessness, a leading campaigner has said. Speaking at the Focus Ireland Conference, the charity’s founder Sr Stanislaus Kennedy said ‘Rebuilding Ireland’, the Government’s action plan on homelessness and housing, is “welcome and ambitious”, but insufficiently ambitious for the needs…

The Church in Ireland should follow the lead of bishops elsewhere and issue guidelines to clarify if and when divorced and civilly-remarried Catholics here can receive Holy Communion, a prominent theologian has said. It comes after Pope Francis wrote to bishops in Argentina commending them on guidelines that permit some civilly-remarried Catholics to receive Holy…

The sole Irish member of the Vatican commission responsible for child protection has said the commission’s involvement in the training of new bishops is “a big step forward”, and praised increased child protection awareness in the developing world. Marie Collins, an abuse survivor who was first named to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of…

A statement signed by former President Mary McAleese is out of step with Pope Francis, one of her colleagues at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, has said.  Mrs McAleese joined more than 100 academics in signing a ‘Scholars’ Statement’ from the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research challenging the Church’s ban on artificial contraception. The former president…

Ireland’s newest bishop has said the Vatican’s ‘baby bishops’ course was a valuable opportunity for networking and learning best practice from elsewhere in the world. Bishop-elect Fintan Monahan, who will be ordained Bishop of Killaloe this Sunday, September 25, said that the annual training course was “great – a very good experience, probably more so…

A report suggesting that more than half of Irish adults don’t fully understand what end-of-life palliative care involves is probably accurate, Bishop Kevin Doran has said. The Bishop of Elphin’s comments followed an announcement by the All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care that more than half of those surveyed admit to having at…