Former Ireland international and current Shamrock Rovers footballer Joey O’Brien has said he will be saying a few prayers at a Dublin church before his team take on AC Milan this evening, Thursday. Mr O’Brien said he customarily prays to St Anthony and did so over the weekend before the match in Tallaght Stadium in…

President Michael D. Higgins has welcomed a decision by a court in Spain to sentence a former Salvadoran army colonel to 133 years in prison for the murder of five Spanish Jesuit priests in the Latin American country in 1989. Inocente Orlando Montano, 77, was found guilty of “terrorist murder”. The killings happened during El…

Independent TD Michael McNamara has raised questions concerning the legality of church lockdowns in the event of a public health emergency. Taking note of a disparity between the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr McNamara has pointed out that “there is clearly a legal issue” about locking down on the basis of…

The Irish Catholic is delighted to announce the appointment of two new journalists. Ruadhán Jones and Jason Osborne have joined the editorial department as Multimedia Journalists working across the newspaper’s print, digital, video and audio output. Mr Jones is a native of Cork and holds a bachelor’s degree in film and screen media and English…

Donations remained strong in 2019, but the effects of Covid-19 cast a shadow over the future, writes Ruadhán Jones On the surface of it, the annual report for 2019/20 from Trócaire is a positive one, in so far as these ever are. However, the arrival of Covid-19 hangs as a cloud over both fundraising and development…

The Church will not grow through fresh strategies alone, but only when priests underline the importance of God’s love for everyone, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has insisted. Speaking in Dublin’s pro-cathedral on Tuesday during the ordination to the priesthood of Fr Frank Drescher, Dr Martin insisted that the Church must change to meet the needs of…

The Archdiocese of Dublin, along with many other dioceses, brought their yearly Lourdes pilgrimage online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Those remembered in their first ‘Virtual Pilgrimage to Lourdes’, which took place last week, were people who lost their lives since the pandemic began, those who are ill, and frontline workers. It’s the second time…

A number TDs have said proposers of the ‘Dying with Dignity Bill’ are “profoundly unaware of the overwhelmingly negative impact” of euthanasia laws. The bill, proposed by People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny, seeks to legalise the practice of assisted suicide in Ireland. Independent TD Carol told The Irish Catholic that the bill is “manipulative” and provides…

Female inmates in Ireland’s largest women’s prison, the Dóchas Centre in Dublin, are subjected to xenophobic and threatening abuse and suffer chronic overcrowding according to a chaplain’s report. The 2018 report, seen by the Irish Examiner, was scathing of the conditions inmates face. It alleges there is overcrowding, with between 130 and 150 inmates being…

The Government’s six-month Covid-19 plan, announced on Tuesday, proposes bans on all religious services except funerals and weddings for level three warnings upward. The country is currently at a level two warning, the maximum being five, which means religious services can take place with up to 50 people attending. The plan recognises the need to…