“Love must become a mission,” said Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, welcoming Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You), Pope Leo XIV’s first Apostolic Exhortation. The document, he said, “moves us from places of comfort to works of compassion and service,” calling Christians to recognise Christ in the poor and confront the structural causes of poverty. Across…
After decades of decline, signs suggest that Ireland’s younger generation might be leading a quiet return to faith. Research from the Bible Society and the recent Iona Institute poll points to a stabilisation and, in some places, a rising of church attendance among Gen Z. Exploring what this means for the future, the Iona Institute…
The morning sun beats down on the city of Wau, South Sudan. In a modest classroom with yellow concrete walls at the Catholic Health Sciences Institute (CHSI), rows of smiling nursing students await the day’s lesson. They are studying anatomy and midwifery, gaining the skills to serve their country, where maternal mortality rates remain among…
Catholic schools in Ireland can live their ethos fully while remaining inclusive, according to Dr Áine Moran, co-founder of Folláine a new catholic education leadership service. “Catholic schools can be Catholic,” Dr Moran told The Irish Catholic. “It’s perfectly doable to express the faith fully and be radically hospitable. But too often leaders, without formation,…
The philosopher-saint Edith Stein (canonised St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) has much to teach modern society about dignity, empathy, and the dangers of what she called “soulish contagion or psychic contagion,” according to Dr Robert McNamara, lecturer in philosophy and head of the department at St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth. “Stein observed how movements…
Dr Robert McNamara, lecturer in philosophy and head of department at St Patrick’s Pontifical University in Maynooth, first encountered St Edith Stein’s book On the Problem of Empathy while passing it daily on a library shelf. “There was an alluring character to her presence,” he remembers. “I tried to read it but found it impossible…
For decades Soline Humbert’s name has been associated in Ireland with the debate over women’s ordination. Her recently released memoir, A Divine Calling, is as she says, “the story of a call that will not let me go.” Born in France and later making her home in Ireland, Ms Humbert lost her mother at 12…
Cardinal Mario Grech has called on the Church to create more spaces where young people can speak and be truly listened to, saying that their voices may carry the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Speaking with The Irish Catholic during his visit to Dublin last week, the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops said:…
“It was horrendous… the idea that some of my colleagues could do such awful things shattered me. That was probably the only time I ever considered giving up,” said Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Donal Roche, recalling the painful years when revelations of clerical child abuse came to light in the 1990s. Speaking at the monthly…
A new book on the priesthood, Priesthood Today, is set to be launched on October 22, the feast of St John Paul II, at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. The volume, edited by Bishop Phonsie Cullinan of Waterford and Lismore and Chair of the Council of Vocations, brings together essays from priests, religious, and lay people…