Category: News

Call for State to streamline school vetting

The Government has been urged to streamline the process for vetting people to work in schools amidst a huge backlog in the safeguarding system. Changes in the vetting process, to ensure that people are safe to work with children, led to a “very large upsurge” in applications for such clearance, according to Seamus Mulconry General…

Gráinne McElwee, who previously worked with the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools in the diocese of Down and Connor, with her nephew Finn after becoming the newest postulant with the Adoration Sisters on Belfast’s Falls Road.

Senator calls for Pope to address Oireachtas in 2018

Fianna Fáil’s Senator Aidan Davitt has called on the Government to invite Pope Francis to address the joint Houses of the Oireachtas during his visit to Ireland in 2018. Senator Davitt said during a radio interview that the Pope’s visit to attend the World Meeting of Families would present “an ideal opportunity” for the Pontiff…

News in Brief

Éamonn Meehan to lead international development network Éamonn Meehan, executive director of the Irish bishops’ aid and development agency Trócaire, has been appointed president of the International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE), the Catholic development network. In accepting the new role, Mr Meehan pledged himself to contributing to the change the world so badly…

Belfast’s Indian community prays for abducted priest

Staff Reporter Members of the Syro-Malabar community in Northern Ireland have offered prayers for the safe release of Fr Tom Uzhunnalil, an Indian Salesian missing in Yemen since he was kidnapped by Islamic extremists last March. Joining with a novena initiated by the Salesian community worldwide, Syro-Malabars attended a day of adoration of the Blessed…

Bishops welcome new schools divestment plan

The Bishops’ Council for Education has offered a welcome for Minister Richard Bruton’s words on religious education in Catholic schools and his proposals for a consultative process on any future divestment of schools. In a statement on behalf of the Council, its chair, Bishop Brendan Kelly said “The Council for Education will study these proposals…

Fr Robert wins praise for ‘tending his flock’

A Mullingar-based priest’s literal interpretation of ‘tending to the flock’ has struck a chord across his rural parish. With farmers working through a busy period of lambing Fr Robert McGivney undertook to bless lambs on the farm of friends in his community, an act which met with such positivity among others that the priest has…

Local curate Fr John Carroll gives a hand in the kitchen at a ‘pop up restaurant’ in the curacy of Barntown during a breakfast fundraiser for one of six Mayoral candidates running in the Wexford parish’s charity elections, intended to raise parish funds and involve parishioners more deeply in local Church and community life.