Most Dublin parishes are struggling to stay afloat and many are not sustainable in the long term, The Irish Catholic understands. It comes after the publication of the first of two sets of accounts the diocese will issue this year bringing unprecedented financial transparency. A source told The Irish Catholic that based on current figures…

Thousands are expected to descend on the Jesuit church on Dublin’s Gardiner Street this weekend, as Ireland hosts its first ever beatification ceremony. Fr John Sullivan SJ, a Catholic convert, will be named Blessed on Saturday in a ceremony led by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and attended by Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for…

Staff Reporter The Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin has said he was “honoured” to take part in the Darkness into Light walk at the weekend to raise awareness of suicide. Beginning at 4.15am in towns and cities across the world, over 150,000 people walked from darkness into dawn light in a movement against suicide which…

Staff reporter Rev. Earl Storey has been appointed as the new editor of the Church of Ireland Gazette. He replaces long-serving editor Canon Ian Ellis who is stepping down after 16 years in the role. Rev. Storey, who was ordained for the Church of Ireland in 1982, will take up the new role on June…

Church leaders will this month open a new national office dedicated exclusively to promoting vocations to priesthood as the shortage of priests continues to bite and some dioceses are no longer able to staff parishes. Bishop Phonsie Cullinan admitted that the Irish Church is playing ‘catch up’, telling The Irish Catholic that Ireland is “behind…

A group of 22 TDs and Senators has called on the Government to recognise as genocide ISIS’s persecution of minority communities including Iraqi and Syrian Christians and Yazidis. In a letter drafted by The Iona Institute, Aid to the Church in Need and Church in Chains, the politicians urge the Minister for Foreign Affairs and…

The principal of the Co. Down primary school whose choir got a standing ovation from the judges on Britain’s Got Talent at the weekend, has said the school is “overawed by the reaction that the children received”. Mrs Sorcha Lyness told The Irish Catholic that “to see everyone on their feet was just phenomenal and…

A Co. Tyrone priest has given his phone number out from the church altar at a teenagers’ funeral, in a direct appeal to young people in need to seek help. Fr Daniel McFaul told mourners at St Mary’s Church in Killyclogher that Elle Trowbridge was “a young and beautiful lady…who was caught in the live…

Staff Reporter Marie Collins’ first training event for Vatican officials since her resignation from Pope Francis’ child protection commission was “encouraging” and “very positive”, the leading advocate has said. Mrs Collins announced her resignation in February from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, citing frustration with obstructive curial officials. Despite this, she joined…