“I get on my knees and pray right at the side of the bed, no matter where I am.”

A parish run initiative to get more men involved in the Church has been described as “wonderful” by the local parish priest, Fr John Sinnott. Seventy men met for a full Irish breakfast, cooked by male volunteers in Johnstown Parish Hall, in Johnstown, South Dublin. The outreach initiative took inspiration from Rebuilt, the book about…

Pope Francis arrives to lead an audience with Roma, Sinti and members of the Travelling community at the Vatican on Monday. The Pontiff appeared to reference the recent tragedy at a halting site in Dublin in which ten people lost their lives when he said: “we do not want to witness any more family tragedies…

Newry parish in Co. Down is to play host to a very new kind of parish faith mission in the run up to Christmas and to mark the new ‘Year of Mercy’. The mission will be given by some 20 international lay missionaries who are studying at the Emmanuel School of Mission in Rome. The…

Archbishop Michael Neary has dismissed as “simplistic” claims that Ireland is experiencing a crisis of priesthood. The Archbishop of Tuam insisted that the real issue facing the Church in Ireland was a “crisis of faith”. “Many people today speak of a crisis in the priesthood. This I consider to be a rather simplistic view of…

The life and legacy of Edward J. Flanagan, was the topic of a public lecture given at the Summerhill College in Sligo by Thomas Lynch, historian and director of community programmes at Boystown, Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Fr Flanagan was born in Leabeg, Ballymoe, Co. Roscommon in 1886 and was a student at the College of…

Hollywood legend Maureen O’Hara, who passed away at the weekend, once said her greatest fear would be “not getting into Heaven”. The flame-haired actress, who was born in Dublin in 1920, passed away in her sleep at her home in Boise, Idaho on Saturday at the age of 95.  When a journalist asked the film…

Theologian, lecturer and author, Fr Brian Grogan SJ, is leading a workshop on The Joy of the Gospel at Knock Shrine next month. Taking place on November 28, the workshop will explore Pope Francis’ call to us in his 2013 Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, a document which addresses topics such as evangelisation in the…

Staff reporter Pope Francis has been voted by young people as one of the most inspiring and admirable figures in the world. The Pope came second in World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Annual Survey 2015, one of the most geographically diverse surveys of millennials, just behind Nelson Mandela. The more than 1,000 respondents to the survey…

US lawmakers have voted to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business, which has been caught selling aborted babies and their body parts. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a bill to defund the controversial organisation after the scandal emerged. “Women have the most to gain from congressional action to reroute these tax dollars to community…