Overseas development charity Trócaire has said the Taoiseach is “relabelling” old funding aimed at easing the impact of climate change on poorer countries at the UN climate change conference, COP27 in Egypt. Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced to the conference on Tuesday that Ireland will contribute €10 million to the Global Shield initiative for 2023, “to protect the most…
Churches must find practical solutions to the energy crisis, says Fr Peter O’Reilly, who questioned the ethics of heating large, inefficient churches,. Churches can keep their energy costs down and tackle fossil fuel use by using parish halls or centres instead of churches “created for numbers that no longer exist and impossible to heat”, the…
One of the church’s leading experts on safeguarding and clerical sexual abuse has said the exclusion of women from seminary formation needs to change. Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner spoke to more than 200 people at a ‘Stolen Lives’ webinar organised by the Root and Branch lay reform movement in Britain in conjunction with Survivor Voices…
An official portrait of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner and former SDLP leader John Hume was unveiled in Westminster on Monday. Commissioned by the Speaker’s advisory committee on works of art, the portrait was painted by Co. Down-based artist Colin Davidson. It was based on drawings he’d done during sittings with Mr Hume in…
Bishop Barron outraged by cemetery desecration Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester expressed outrage November 2 over the desecration of several graves and the columbarium at the diocese’s Calvary Cemetery in Rochester “with hateful and obscene graffiti” on Halloween night. He assured his prayers for families “of those whose final resting places were so dishonoured”. The…
Pope Francis promised reporters traveling with him to the Gulf nation of Bahrain that his November 3-6 visit would be an “interesting trip.” Thanking the more than 65 reporters, photographers and television-camera operators on the plane with him from Rome, the Pope added that he hoped the trip would include “good news”. However, he said, the…
A Catholic bishop in Congo warned of a loss of government control over parts of the country, three months ahead of a projected visit by Pope Francis. “Our people are languishing in misery, while those managing the republic swim in abundance, showing indifference toward the martyred population,” said Bishop Placide Lubamba Ndjibu of Kasongo. “We…
The Catholic Church is working to promote healing and rebuild trust with Native American communities in response to revelations about mistreatment of students in church-run boarding schools, a priest working on Native American issues for the US bishops told an Archdiocese of Seattle gathering. “This is heart stuff, not head stuff,” Fr Michael Carson, assistant…
Political turmoil is robbing people of hope, writes Chai Brady Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry diocese has warned there is a danger that politics “becomes a game for parties who are squabbling” as the North continues to lack an executive six months after elections. A new election is yet to be announced but is unlikely…
Saints were revolutionaries living the beatitudes, says Pope The saints were not “starched”, picture-perfect conformists, Pope Francis said; they were “countercultural and revolutionary”. The multitude of men and women honoured on the feast of All Saints lived according to the Eight Beatitudes, which made them decidedly out of place in the world, Pope Francis said…
Chai Brady
Ruadhán Jones