The Pope has ordered the laicisation of Fernando Karadima, a Chilean priest convicted in 2011 of the sexual abuse of minors. He had previously been sentenced to a life of prayer and penance. Pope Francis made the “exceptional decision” to dismiss Karadima from the clerical state, “in conscience for the good of the Church”, according…
‘Ireland needs bridges rather than borders’ Ireland’s border communities fear border structures and barriers becoming magnets for violence in the wake of a hard Brexit, the Primate of All-Ireland has said. Speaking to The Irish Catholic about his trip to Poland this month for the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe, Archbishop Eamon…
Investment to help vulnerable women would be the best way of commemorating the experiences of women who spent time in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, according to the author of an important study of two Dublin laundries. “Dare I say that the most fitting memorial to women and girls who found themselves in Magdalene laundries, for however…
The restoration of a statue of Ireland’s leading 19th-Century temperance campaigner to Dublin’s O’Connell Street last week has been welcomed by Ireland’s Capuchin community. The statue of the Tipperary-born Capuchin, Fr Theobald Mathew, who was instrumental in starting Ireland’s Pioneer movement, was removed from the capital’s main thoroughfare in 2016 to facilitate work on the…
A new group of nuns is hoping to bring fresh spirituality and hope to a Cork town after the community lost the presence of the Presentation Sisters in 2002. Four young sisters of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, hailing from the US, were installed in Mitchelstown over the weekend by Bishop…
A well-known Chinese prelate has dubbed a new deal between the Vatican and China as a “betrayal” of Catholics in the country. For the first time in decades, all of the Catholic bishops in China are in full communion with the Pope, the Vatican announced. Cardinal Joseph Zen, former bishop of Hong Kong, called on…
In the past few years, the moral legitimacy of euthanasia has become a hot-button issue and even in Christian circles, opposition to its implementation has been waning. Indeed, only last week did former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu say that terminally ill people should have the right to a “dignified assisted death”, following a murder charge…
A Catholic priest has been kidnapped in Niger, near the border with Burkina Faso. Italian Fr Pierluigi Maccalli, a member of the Society of African Missions, was taken last week after suspected Islamist gunmen attacked his rectory in the village of Bamoanga. “The kidnapping happened at around 9pm. According to local residents, about eight men…
The Archbishop of Newark has announced he will not attend an October gathering of bishops slated to discuss young adults and vocational discernment. The archbishop cited his pastoral obligations in the archdiocese amid the US Church’s ongoing sexual abuse crisis. “This Synod is a uniquely important moment in the life of the Church, and I…
With this year’s plenary gathering of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe being held in Poland, solidarity seemed an obvious theme, alluding as it did to the trade union founded by Lech Walesa in 1980 that was crucial in bringing about the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe. “The theme of solidarity…
Chai Brady
Greg Daly
Colm Fitzpatrick