A Catholic Youth Conference for those aged 18-40 is coming up on Saturday, April 25 in Horan’s restaurant, Racecourse Road, Roscommon from 9.30am – 4pm. The theme is ‘Mary, Cause of Our Joy’ and the programme includes talks by Frs Charles Benoit Reche and Bernard Murphy, Friars of the Renewal, Marian Carroll, and also personal…

A motion by unionist politicians in the North to restrict the right of faith-based schools to protect their ethos has been criticised. Proposing the motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Ulster Unionist Party MLA Danny Kinahan called for the removal of requirements for a Certificate in Religious Education to teach nursery and primary level in…

The ‘tomb of Jesus’ is back in the news, writes Paul Keenan

A group of students who assisted at the episcopal ordination of Bishop Phoncie Cullinan in Waterford cathedral on Sunday, stopped the papal nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown to pose for a selfie photo after the ceremony. Photo: Mags Gargan

Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Rome and summoned the papal nuncio in Ankara to express its disapproval at Pope Francis’ reference to the death of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1918 as “genocide”. Speaking before concelebrating Mass for the Centenary of Armenian Martyrdom, Pope Francis greeted the…

The father-of-two, dubbed the ‘special one’ by adoring fans, said he “totally” believes in God.

Brutal violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo must stop, and the Church can help by reaching out to those committing the violence, according to religious congregations working in the conflict-torn country. The congregations based in the Diocese of Butembo-Beni say in a joint statement that armed men in the northeastern area of Beni…

Sean Heaslip, O'Rahilly's Villas, Tralee, Co. Kerry admires a mural of Msgr Hugh O'Flaherty and the surrounding garden, which is within 20 yards of the house where his family lived in Tralee for two years. Photo: John Cleary

Staff reporter A Catholic priest who decided to stay on the Titanic to pray with passengers rather than flee should be made a saint, campaigners have said. Fr Thomas Byles boarded the ship at Southampton to attend his younger brother’s wedding in New York. However, when it sank in 1912 he twice refused to join…