Matt Letourneau   My mom always told me that when you want to experience a city’s culture, you should always start by visiting its cathedrals. When picturing a cathedral, you may imagine the skyscraping towers of Notre-Dame or the grandiose dome of St Paul’s. Although these buildings are synonymous with resplendent architecture, jaw-dropping scale and…

The Irish Church Music Association (ICMA) had their 54th Summer School with theme ‘Water of Life’ last week from July 2-4 in Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth. The chief celebrant at the opening Mass in the College Chapel was Msgr Joseph McGuinness. During his homily, Msgr McGuinness mentioned “the American chemist Stanley Miller’s experiment in 1952”,…

The Daughters of St Paul, often known as the Pauline Sisters, celebrate the charism and genius of Sr Thecla Merlo, who collaborated with Fr James Alberione in the founding of their order. She was a unique person in the history of the universal Church, as well as in the world of communication and publishing. And…

In a world of information-overload, where every influencer, media company, and big-business is clamouring for our attention, effective evangelisation can feel like a daunting task. One of the questions that subsequently arises in for the Church in the modern age, is how exactly we can be heard amid a world that is already filled with…

Many young adults and teenagers are leaving the Catholic Faith in the background of their lives. Some still consider themselves as Catholics, they go to Mass on Christmas and Easter and engage sporadically with the Church, while others have left the Faith life completely and consider themselves as ‘non-religious’. Daniela Proano told The Irish Catholic…

Ava Westendorf According to a survey that the magazine National Geographic  conducted, in 2023, over half a million people went on the pilgrimage of Camino de Santiago in Galicia, Spain. However, only 40% of these walkers were using this route for religious reasons. Due to an influx of fitness trends and people’s increased love for traveling,…

A 2022 report published by the Freedom House organisation, a body that evaluates the health of human rights in respective countries, declared that Ireland ranked 39/40 in the political rights category and 58/60 in the civil liberties category, concluding that Ireland ranked 97/100 when overall freedom was closely scrutinised. On the surface all looks well…

On June 11, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland implemented a new policy titled ‘A Safe and Welcoming Church – Safeguarding Children Policy and Standards for the Catholic Church in Ireland’. Mr Aidan Gordon, who has been the CEO of the National Board since April 2024, shared the priorities,…

Since their foundation, the Irish State hospitals were under the supervision and operation of Church orders which provided care grounded in an ethos dictated by Catholic social teaching. Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, many of Ireland’s hospitals were established by religious orders, specifically orders of nuns. But as the issue of hospital ownership becomes…

Fr Gerry O’Hanlon SJ   The second (and final) session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality convenes in Rome next October. Where are we at? Judging by the Irish response to the 2023 synthesis report, ‘Towards October 2024’ (May 2024), we are very much on track. In that…