Staff Reporter Primate of All-Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin will address the challenges facing the family in modern Ireland at The Irish Catholic national conference later this month. It will be the archbishop’s first major address on the issue since he participated with Pope Francis in the worldwide Synod of Bishops on the family in the Vatican…
Category: Irish News
Baptism criteria for Catholic schools ‘hugely overstated’
Archbishop Eamon Martin has said that claims that non-believers are being forced to baptise their children in order to get them into their local Catholic school are “hugely overstated”. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, the Primate of All-Ireland said people would be “almost forgiven for thinking every Catholic school in this country are insisting on…
Media has turned its back on religion – Adrian Chiles
BBC broadcaster Adrian Chiles has complained that the media has come to see religion only in terms of fanaticism and turned its back on millions of ordinary worshippers of all faiths. “Jesus said, ‘The meek will inherit the Earth.’ Well, they might do but they get no press along the way at all, they’re completely…
Bishop rejects accusation of ‘scaremongering’ on abortion
Bishop Kevin Doran has rejected an accusation by a Labour party TD that he is “scaremongering at the highest level” on the issue of abortion in the run-up to the general election. Anne Ferris, a Labour TD for Wicklow, had criticised Bishop Doran’s stance that any political attempts to legislate for terminations in cases of…
Solidarity visit to vulnerable Christians in Middle East
Bishop John McAreavey is representing Ireland in a delegation of bishops making a 10-day visit to vulnerable Christian communities in the Middle East this week. The Bishop of Dromore joins bishops from across Europe, North America and South Africa on the visit to communities in Gaza, Bethlehem and refugees in Jordan for the meeting of…
Trial of evangelical clergyman ‘waste of time’, says priest
A well-known priest has said the trial of evangelical Pastor James McConnell for having allegedly sent “a grossly offensive” communication was a “complete waste of time and energy” that could have been better used. Pastor McConnell had been tried for anti-Islamic comments in a May 2014 sermon at the Whitewell Metropolitan Church, including saying, “Islam…
‘You never lost it!’
Bishop John Buckley of Cork and Ross, former Cork and Sarsfield’s hurler, watched by club Chairman, Cllr Thomas Gould and main organiser, Jason Daly, launching the St Vincent’s GAA Dave McCarthy Memorial Poc Fada at Clogheen, Cork. Photo: Mike English
RTÉ will not reinstate Gloria programme
RTÉ will not reconsider its decision to axe Tim Thurston’s popular Sunday morning radio programme, Gloria, despite a petition calling for its reinstatement gaining support from thousands of loyal fans. Aodán Ó Dubhghaill, Head of RTÉ Lyric fm, told The Irish Catholic that he was hopeful listeners would “hear Tim again in the future” but…
Maynooth to bolster links with top-level colleges
St Patrick’s College, Maynooth is set to strengthen its links with a number of top-level European colleges this year. The Kildare-based Pontifical University has been in discussions since 2013 with Heythrop College, London (Britain), Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Utrecht (Holland) and the Newman Institute, Uppsala (Sweden) with a view to forming a strategic partnership.…
American monastic group moves to Ireland – Mags Gargan
An American community of men living according to the monastic Rule of Saint Benedict is moving to Ireland this month to ‘return the love’ given by the Irish priests and religious who served the Church in the United States. The Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle was established by Dom Mark Daniel Kirby…