Precious Life, the largest pro-life group in the North, has opened a new pregnancy care centre in Belfast. Speaking at the opening of Stanton Healthcare Belfast on Tuesday, Precious Life’s director, Bernadette Smyth said, the centre will “offer a much needed alternative” to the Marie Stope Clinic at no cost “because we believe that women…

A filmmaker is seeking to raise €40,000 to enable the distribution and promotion of a film about Japan’s last Irish nun. Thanks to your Noble Shadow tells the story of Jennie O’Sullivan who, aged just 23, left Ireland as Sr Paschal, a member of the Infant Jesus Sisters, to spend the next 75 years in…

The Limerick-based Dominican Biblical Institute (DBI) is in the final stages of closure due a severe lack of funding since the financial crash.  DBI Director Fr Gerard Norton OP has confirmed that the DBI board’s final meeting has taken place, the company has ceased trading and it is preparing to apply to be voluntarily struck…

A well-known priest has described as an “appalling stupidity” the closure of rural garda stations, claiming that the decision has led to a rise in crime in isolated parts of the country.  Fr Micheál MacGréil also warned that the improved network of motorways in Ireland has been a contributing factor to the rise in rural…

Bishop Ray Browne and Carol Hickson (left) with Kamil Kunicki, Jane McGillicuddy, Kevin Lavery and Kiah Doona at the launch of Ógra Beo, a new parish programme aimed at getting young people in Kerry diocese involved in Church life. Training with adult leaders begins in Killarney on October 22.

Damien Varley speaks out about his faith

The Irish Association for the Lasallian Mission (De La Salle) held its AGM in Castletown, Portlaoise recently. Fifty school principals, teachers and others spent time together to review and plan for how best to promote its mandate of “human and Christian education”. Its president, Tom O’Neill, Waterford welcomed the gatherings from all over Ireland and…

Cormac O’Duffy, a former teacher and graduate of UCD and UL, had his oratorio The Wedding Feast of the Lamb premiered in front of a full church at St John the Evangelist in Philadelphia during the World Meeting of Families (WMOF). The work, dedicated to marriage and family, was performed by the Choirs of Villanova…

The Parish Cells National Seminar hosted in St John the Evangelist Parish, Ballinteer, while celebrating 25 years of parish cells in Ireland, had as its theme ‘A Vision for Parish Community – how a cell community can contribute to parish life”. In 1990 Fr Michael Hurley and three parishioners from Ballinteer attended an international seminar…

Ireland’s most senior Churchman has rejected calls for more decision-making power about Church teaching to be given to local bishops’ conferences. Archbishop Eamon Martin also said he struggles to envisage how the Church could lift its ban on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics while remaining faithful to its teachings on marriage and the Eucharist.…