“Education is not just about knowledge and academic excellence,” said Dr Aiveen Mullally. “It is an act of hope.” That conviction set the tone for this year’s Network for Researchers in Catholic Education (NfRCE) Annual Conference, held at the Marino Institute of Education, Dublin, on October 16-17. The event gathered academics, principals, teachers and chaplains…
The worldwide head of the Dominican Order, Fr Gerard Timoner OP, visited Killacloghane Wood, Milltown, Co. Kerry, last weekend to mark the 372nd anniversary of the martyrdom of Venerable Fr Tadhg Moriarty OP, Prior of Tralee Abbey. Fr Timoner, the Master of the Order of Preachers, celebrated open-air Mass at the historic Mass Rock where…
The Pro Life Campaign hosted its annual national conference last weekend in the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, under the theme ‘Pathways to Progress – Working for a Pro-Life Future’. The event, chaired by broadcaster Wendy Grace, gathered hundreds of activists determined to keep hope alive for Ireland’s pro-life movement in the years following the repeal of…
When Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly reflects on Ireland’s missionary tradition, he sees a great line of continuity. “There was a time when we sent missionaries to the four corners of the earth,” he told The Irish Catholic. “One of the strongest things we can ask of people. Be part of our own family of the baptised.…
“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…