After almost six decades of Antarctic ministry, the Church has decided to withdraw from the world’s least populous continent. Since 1957, New Zealand’s Christchurch diocese has been sending five priests to Antarctica every summer, where they served at the Chapel of the Snows, the world’s southernmost church, and four smaller chapels. Numbers attending Mass at…

The annual pilgrimage to Máméan in the Maum Turk Mountains in Connemara was held on Sunday with Bishop Brendan Kelly of Achonry (centre) celebrating Mass. Fr Fintan Monahan celebrated Turas na Croise along with sean nós singer Máire Áine Uí Chadhain. Fr Michéal Mac Gréil read liosta na Mairbh. Fr Kieran Burke of Leenane sang…

Canadian bishops have objected to a draft law facilitating assisted suicide and euthanasia in the province province of Seskatchewan, warning of how it would endanger society’s weakest and oldest members. Criticising the bill’s euphemistic language, the bishops objected to terms like “medical assistance to die,” “assisted death” and “to die with dignity.” Such language, they…

Pro-life campaigners have described as “blatant hypocrisy” calls for an end to Ireland’s constitutional protection of unborn children with life-limiting conditions in the same weeks special Olympians returned home in triumph. Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign (PLC) told The Irish Catholic it was hard to fathom that on one hand there are “news reports…

The Russian-backed separatist rebellion in Ukraine has plunged the country into its worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, according to a Ukrainian bishop who warns that “millions of refugees” could soon head west to escape starvation. “Huge numbers are now caught between hammer and anvil,” according to Kharkiv-Zaporizhia’s Auxiliary Bishop Jan Sobilo, continuing, “the…

The Irish naval service is already learning lessons from the Mediterranean mission of the LÉ Eithne, according to the chaplain to the naval service. Fr Des Campion, who has served as naval chaplain for 26 years and has worked in Kosovo and the Lebanon, told The Irish Catholic that the LÉ Eithne’s mission was the…

The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church has called for prayer to mark the anniversary of the conquest of the Nineveh Plain by the so-called ‘Islamic State’, when hundreds of thousands of Christians were forced to abandon their homes and flee towards Iraqi Kurdistan. In a letter to Pope Francis and the bishops of the…

Archbishop Eamon Martin has announced a number of changes to clergy appointments in the Archdiocese of Armagh which will take effect from August 22. The diocese’s two newly ordained priests have been appointed to parishes. Fr Aidan McCann to be CC Dungannon and Fr Brian Slater to be CC St Patrick’s, Dundalk. Three priests, Mgsr…

A calendar of mercy The Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation has published a full schedule of events for the coming Jubilee Year of Mercy, beginning with the opening of the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Over a dozen individual celebrations are scheduled for the…

A survey by Barnardos has found that the overall costs of sending a child to school have gone up this year compared with 2014. It takes €785 to put a child through their first year of secondary school, an increase of €50 and it costs €365 for a senior infant, up €20 euro. The average…