The ecumenical potential of next year’s World Meeting of Families (WMOF) was highlighted at a recent gathering of Catholic and Church of Ireland bishops, a Church spokesman has said. The August 2018 meeting is widely expected to see Pope Francis visiting Ireland, both to take part in the major Church event, and to ‘complete’ St…
Teachers need to be assisted in learning how to integrate refugee children who have experienced trauma into Irish schools, according to the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI). Commenting on a British initiative which saw teachers in Northern Ireland sent to German schools in order to learn from their integration techniques Sr Stan, the founder of…
News In Brief Missionaries at home should be thanked just as much as those who have worked abroad, the chair of the Bishops’ Council for Missions has said. Speaking at a Mass in Maynooth organised by World Missions Ireland, Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly SMA, a onetime missionary in Africa, gave thanks for all those who made…
Unborn children may still be protected by the Constitution even if the Eighth Amendment is repealed, former Fine Gael leader and minister for finance Michael Noonan has said. Speaking in a Fine Gael parliamentary meeting, Mr Noonan urged the Oireachtas Committee on the Eight Amendment to take legal advice on what the implications would be…
Parishes and port chaplaincies can play a key role in tackling human rights abuses at sea, especially for those trapped in the “invisible chains” of human trafficking, Ferns’s Bishop Denis Brennan has said. “People imagine it happens somewhere else, but it happens here too,” Dr Brennan told The Irish Catholic, adding that with given the…
An Irish missionary has been awarded for her dedication to the education and development of women in Sierra Leone. The President of Sierra Leone presented Sr Teresa McKeon with the award of ‘Officer of the Order of Rokel’ at a ceremony in Freetown. Sr Teresa has ministered in Sierra Leone since 1954 serving as a…
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…
A Catholic Bishop has railed against alcohol lobbyist tactics which threaten the arts and leisure industry in reaction to a new alcohol bill that is now priority legislation in the Dáil, saying sports thrive regardless of their sponsorship. Bishop Eamonn Walsh, vice chair of the Irish Bishops’ Drugs Initiative, said he had to admire the…
Efforts to deny rape survivors who had refused abortions speaking venues in Dublin are part of a concerted effort to shut down pro-life voices, Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín has said. Mr Tóibín was one of 11 members of the Oireachtas who last week signed a statement expressing concern about the increasing inability of businesses…
The work of hospital, prison, and university chaplains are the focus of ‘Ministry of Hope’, the second episode of which is screened on RTÉ One this Thursday. The series concentrates on Margaret Sleator, one of the first ever lay chaplain in Dublin’s Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Catherine Black chaplain to Arklow, Co Wicklow’s Shelton Abbey…
Chai Brady
Greg Daly