One of US President Donald Trump’s leading Evangelical advisors has asked to meet Pope Francis to discuss a controversial article in a Vatican-approved Italian journal which sharply criticised some trends in Catholic-Evangelical relations. An article in La Civiltà Cattolica last month expressed the view that some American Catholics and Evangelicals are forming a political alliance…
The Knights of St Columbus will send €1.7m for Christians displaced from their homes by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq. In 2014, the Islamic State removed hundreds of families of religious minorities from their homes in Karamdes, a mostly Christian town on the Ninevah Plain in Iraq. Two years later the town was liberated.…
Venezuela’s government has ignored the Vatican’s call to suspend the formation of a new Constituent Assembly, a body tasked with re-writing the country’s constitution. The motion to elect the body, which is capable of overriding the powers of all other government branches, was passed after a referendum last Sunday. This week the UN human rights…
Pope Francis is expected to focus on improving the troubles of about a million Rohingya Muslims when he visits Myanmar (Burma) in the last week of November. The Vatican has acknowledged a possible trip is being studied, but it has said it is too early to confirm. The visit is expected to be announced officially…
A giant robotic spider perched near Notre Dame Cathedral in Canada has drawn shock and criticism from Catholics – to the disappointment of the archbishop. Archbishop Terrence Prendergast said he was surprised by the negative reaction to an artistic initiative after critics called the mechanical spider’s placement “sacrilegious”, “demonic” and “disrespectful” of a sacred space.…
Organised criminals face excommunication A consultation group for the Vatican will consider using excommunication as a weapon against organised crime and corruption. The Mafia and other criminal organisations could be thrown out of the Church if proposals published last week by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development are followed. The group proposes the…
Ireland’s first Jesuit bishop made a touching speech in which he commemorated his late sister, after he was ordained bishop of the Diocese of Raphoe on Sunday. Worshippers came in their droves to the ordination of Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, filling the Cathedral of Saints Eunan and Columba in Letterkenny, Donegal. Dr McGuckian, whose two…
Winnie Woodburn, 84, during last Sunday’s annual Croagh Patrick pilgrimage. Photo: CNS
Staff Reporter Taoiseach Leo Vardakar is right that Ireland’s homelessness crisis will not be solved in the Government’s lifetime, and the Government is to blame, a leading campaigner has said. Mr Varadkar’s comments on TV3’s Tonight with Vincent Brown revealed a profound ignorance of the nature of the crisis, Fr Peter McVerry told The Irish…
A leading historian has questioned the established idea of the Magdalene laundries, saying that the public view of them makes it difficult for a “fairer assessment to emerge”. Dr Jacinta Prunty, head of the Department of History in Maynooth University, recently published a book investigating the history of the laundries. One of the main points…
Chai Brady