While many Twitter users saw last week’s meeting of American Vice President Mike Pence with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his partner as an in-your-face moment for the pro-marriage Christian politician, a Dublin-based priest has said the scene really shows gracious dialogue. Fr Bill Dailey, priest in Dublin’s Newman University Church, criticised Twitter users who were…
Category: News
Pray for families of Greenvale tragedy – archbishop
The Primate of All-Ireland has asked for prayers and Christian outreach following the tragic deaths of three teenagers in a crowd crush outside the Greenvale Hotel, Co. Tyrone on St Patrick’s night. The three young people have been named as Lauren Bullock (17), a student of St Patrick’s College in Dungannon, and Connor Currie (16)…
Leadership style inspired by Church – top rugby coach
Faith isn’t a matter of praying for victory, Wales’s defence coach told a gathering of Catholics ahead of the Welsh rugby team’s 25-7 trouncing of Ireland last weekend. Speaking on ‘Faith in a Competitive World’ to over 120 people near Cardiff’s St David’s Cathedral, lifelong Catholic Shaun Edwards said that as a boy he had…
European justice groups urge action as EU elections loom
Catholic justice and peace commissions have called for greater attention to social justice across the EU, urging political leaders to take steps to curb food waste, arms exports and multinational abuses. The Conference of European Justice and Peace Commissions said a “new and comprehensive European regional development policy” was needed to better serve the common…
Parade offers ‘unreal’ joy in ‘tense’ Paris
Fr Aidan Troy, a priest who came to prominence shielding local schoolgirls from loyalist mobs in Belfast, has said families are terrified by conflicts between police and protesters in Paris, and that dialogue is the only way of ending the violence. Famous for his role in the Holy Cross Ardoyne protests in 2001, Passionist Fr…
Look beyond racist clichés, Irish-American cardinal urges
A prominent Irish-American cardinal has used St Patrick’s Day to hit out at anti-immigrant rhetoric, and called on Catholics to look beyond stereotypes to see people as they truly are. “In the 1870s, the code images for Irish people were drunken apes,” Cardinal Joe Tobin wrote on Twitter. “The same sort of calumny is used…
German Church must tackle ‘blocked thinking’
The Church in Germany is at a point where serious debate – including on priestly celibacy and the role of women – and openness to doing things in a new way must encouraged, said the president of the German bishops’ conference. “Shakeups demand special proceedings,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx said at the end of the bishops’…
Big differencing between considering and leaving Church – researcher
The headlines from a Gallup Poll about the growing number of US Catholics who have thought about leaving the Church because of the clergy abuse crisis did not faze one researcher of Catholic data too much. “There is a substantial difference between considering leaving and leaving. It is also the case among those who do…
‘Hopes and prayers’ for Brexit solution
Ireland’s bishop tasked with dealing with European matters says that people are “hoping and praying” that developments with Brexit serve the common good. Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor said that various Church initiatives show how much concern there is around this issue. “On the basis of the initiatives…
CIA backed Rosary crusades, documentary claims
Rosary Crusades in Latin America organised by a famous Irish-born priest were funded by the CIA as part of a campaign against communism, according to a documentary to be shown on RTÉ tonight. Guns and Rosaries tells the story of how Fr Patrick Peyton, the US-based ‘Rosary priest’ from Attymass, Co. Mayo, who after recovering…

Colm Fitzpatrick



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