Irish missionary work in Venezuela is worth celebrating even in troubled times, Greg Daly learns This summer, Ireland’s Sacred Heart Missionaries (MSC) celebrated the 50th anniversary of their mission in Venezuela, but compared with 1992’s silver jubilee, the mission’s golden jubilee celebration was a low key affair. “We had a Mass first,” explains Fr…
Pope Francis has given his approval for an extraordinary ‘month of mission’ in 2019 to reinvigorate and renew the missionary spirit and action of the Church. October 2019 was chosen for the month of prayer because it will be the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s 1919 apostolic letter, Maximum Illud on the propagation of…
In the last two weeks 220 young people from two Irish diocese collected the Pope John Paul II Awards (JPII) for work in their parish and community. The Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, assisted Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan in awarding 133 students from schools across the diocese of Waterford and Lismore. Archbishop Okolo thanked the…
Missionary legacy inspired WMOF Pope Francis chose Ireland to host next year’s World Meeting of Families to make sure Irish Catholics would take part in a ‘revolution’ promoting marriage and family life, one of the Pope’s key advisors has said. Dublin-born Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who heads the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, said…
Some stories make us uncomfortable. Mine is one of those stories, but I will tell it nonetheless, because I am a woman whose child was conceived in rape, and women like me will no longer be silenced. I was travelling on business, staying in a little hotel in a college town, when it happened. It was…
For the first time faith-based organisations and missionary congregations have united to call on the Government to an increase Overseas Development Aid (ODA) in Budget 2018, which is due to be announced next week. This coordinated effort has brought together the support of six of Ireland’s well-known faith-based organisations – CBM Ireland, Tearfund Ireland, Team…
Originating in the Middle East in what is now Turkey, the Church of Antioch was founded by Sts Peter and Paul and is where the word ‘Christian’ originally comes from, according to the New Testament. This developed into the Antiochian Orthodox Church. There are three parishes, in Belfast, Dublin and Kerry. The small community of…
Why the Irish Church Deserves to Die. Ballyfermot-based priest Fr Joe McDonald could hardly have chosen a more inflammatory title for his first book, calling for Irish Catholics to embrace the reality of a dying Church and work for a resurrection. The title’s not idly chosen, he says, explaining how there’s a point in the book…
A former refugee on the precipice of suicide was saved by her Church and friends after escaping war and a direct provision centre. Natalia Tsadzikidze, from Clondalkin in Dublin, escaped Georgia in Eastern Europe during a time of political tension and violence in the country. She is now a naturalised Irish citizen. Mrs Tsadzikidze felt like…
This week sees the third diocesan pilgrimage to Knock led by an American bishop in as many years, but if Wisconsin’s Diocese of Green Bay is less familiar to Irish Catholics than Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s New York or Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s Boston, it’s hardly one without a spiritual kinship to Ireland’s national shrine. The National…
Greg Daly
Chai Brady
Mags Gargan