Fr Noel Weir (39) is pictured with his family following his ordination by Bishop Michael Smith in the Church of the Assumption, Tullamore on Sunday – the second ordination for the Diocese of Meath this year. Pictured: Back row (from left) Katie Fletcher, Catherine Weir, Fr Noel Weir, Mary Weir, Eileen Fletcher, Ignatius and Emer…

John L. Allen takes on the risky business of predicting the future

El Salvador’s civil war killers face fading immunity, writes Paul Keenan

A major inquiry has concluded that Britain is no longer a Christian country and should recognise this. The two-year inquiry by the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, chaired by the former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and involving religious leaders from all faiths, found that the decline of churchgoing and the rise…

Bishops accuse banks, politicians of instilling dread

Ex-MP to head Britain’s Jesuit Refugee Service Former Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather has been appointed as Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in the UK (JRS UK). Ms Teather joined the International Advocacy team of JRS in June 2015, and has visited JRS projects all over the world as an advocacy adviser.   While an MP, Ms Teather chaired the…

Tributes have been paid to Fr Gerry Reynolds, a priest credited for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, who has died aged 80. The Redemptorist priest based at Clonard Monastery in west Belfast, died in the city’s Royal Victoria Hospital on Monday (November 30) after a short illness. Fr Reynolds, a Co. Limerick…

New research by the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO) shows that securing accommodation was the most important factor in helping a person move away from criminality. The ICPO, a pastoral outreach of the Irish Bishops Conference, works with approximately 1,200 Irish people imprisoned in more than 30 countries around the world, offering information, support…

Pictured at the launch of Ireland & Vatican II: Essays Theological, Pastoral and Educational at the offices of The Irish Catholic in Dublin are editor Fr Niall Coll and contributor Baroness Nuala O’Loan. Fr Gerry Reynolds CSsR was also a contributor to the book. The featured essays explore areas such as education, human rights, social…

Staff reporter A leading academic has claimed that if it were not for the vocation crisis, there would be little appetite to involve lay people in the Church here. Fr Oliver Rafferty SJ, Director of Irish Studies at Boston College, insisted that “if there was not a shortage of priests in the contemporary Church the mind-set…