Former UCD student president Katie Ascough talks to Susan Gately about winning the prestigious Westminster Award   One defining moment in Katie Ascough’s life was when she held her dead baby brother in her hand. Her mother, Jaclyn, had miscarried at home. “I remember holding him in the palm of my hand and being shocked by…

With the World Meeting of Families 2018 (WMOF2018) fast approaching the countdown has begun as parishes make plans to celebrate the historic occasion from August 21 to 26, now just months away. It’s been just under 40 years since a Pope has visited Ireland, and hopes are high that Pope Francis will be able to…

In 1997, Pope St John Paul II instituted a day of prayer for women and men in consecrated life. This celebration is attached to the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2. The Feast is also known as Candlemas Day, the day on which candles are blessed symbolising Christ who is the light of…

Modern existential anxiety is vocation opportunity, reports Chai Brady   Apathy among young people, unawareness of the option of religious life and the invisibility of religious orders in the public sphere are some of the challenges highlighted by Irish vocational directors. Negative public perception of Church organisations and the lack of peers in religious life…

A scripture scholar tells Susan Gately about her journey from Protestantism to the Catholic Church   A woman who started life as a Reformed Presbyterian “with a Baptist mother” and followed three of her family into the Catholic Church, gave the keynote address at the inaugural meeting for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Dr…

Sinéad 
Healy Homelessness in Ireland is at the point of crisis with over 8,500 homeless in the Republic of Ireland. Depaul now helps 915 people that are homeless or at risk of homelessness every single day across Northern and the Republic of Ireland. The organisation has grown significantly in the Republic of Ireland to meet the…

Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy, Life President & Founder of Focus Ireland explains that while the homelessness crisis is the worst we have ever seen, the situation would be much worse without the work of Focus Ireland. She also explains how the crisis can be ended by returning to more provision of social housing…   When I…

A centre founded by an Irish priest has been proposed as a partner in Africa’s Great Green Wall project, writes Susan Gately   Fifteen kilometres wide and 8,000 km long, the Great Green Wall is a band of indigenous trees and vegetation planted across Africa which aims to halt the desertification of the Sahel and…

Jonathan Corrie’s death in December 2014 seemed set to transform national attitudes to homelessness, but more than three years later, not merely has the situation not improved, but things have got much worse. With roughly 9,000 people homeless in Ireland now, it seems the country now has more than twice as many people homeless as…