It is “ridiculous” for the State’s Minister for Children to be in favour of permitting the abortion of unborn children, according to the member of the Audit Committee of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs who resigned last week. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, former Deloitte Ireland chairman John Pittock said when Minister Katherine Zappone…

The most striking thing about Pope Francis’ meeting with the Vatican’s child protection commission last week was that he admitted that priests accused of abuse were moved about by their bishops, child protection campaigner and former commission member Marie Collins has said. At one point in his first ever meeting with the entire Pontifical Commission…

  An official of the Oblates Youth Service said they would be “cautious” booking with Ryanair again after their 79 strong group was stranded for hours in a French airport coming home from Lourdes. Over the weekend, after the Lourdes volunteers had been assisting the elderly and the sick for a week, the group’s flight…

Leading legal and historical scholars of Bunreacht na hÉireann have rejected claims by an independent TD that the Irish Constitution was written by a priest. Speaking in the Dáil, Dublin South-Central TD Joan Collins said: “The Constitution is not fit for purpose and needs replacement. It was written by a Catholic priest in the 1930s…

An Irish missionary based in Myanmar has called for Burmese leader, Aung San Suu Kyi to return her Nobel Peace Prize because of her refusal to condemn the “genocide” of Rohingya Muslims in her country. Columban Fr Neil Magill, who has been teaching in Myanmar for 11 years, described the “brutal persecution against the Rohingya…

A call for mourners to attend the funeral of an Irish man who died in Manchester last month could be the first of many such appeals, the head of the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain has warned. John Joseph O’Brien, 73, died in the Hulme area of the city on August 9, and has no known…

A policeman who was the most senior Catholic in the RUC has spoken of an IRA plot to kill him during Mass. Former high ranking RUC, subsequently PSNI, policeman Peter Sheridan said he was told by gardaí during the height of the Troubles that his life was in serious danger. “I use to attend Mass…

With space for 50 families, the new Crosscare centre at the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin has opened and is beginning to house vulnerable people. This follows the move of DCU students to St Patrick’s College, leaving the space open to be used as emergency temporary accommodation run by the Catholic charity. The project is…

The Irish Capuchins’ Year of Vocation, launched last weekend at Knock, is a “natural progression” from how the order was in the national spotlight last year in connection with their 400th anniversary in Ireland and the centenary of the Easter Rising, the order’s vocations promoter has said. “It’s a year to actively promote the Capuchin…

The Jesuit Refugee Service has opened a new multi-purpose resource centre designed to create a safe space to support asylum seekers in adapting to their new surroundings in Ireland. Seomra Fáilte was opened in the Balseskin Reception Centre in Dublin in July and offers a range of activities to newly arrived refugees and long-term residents…