Pope Francis is misunderstood by people both within the Church as well as by some outside it, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said. Speaking in St Mary’s Church on Dublin’s Haddington Road as part of the Patrick Finn lecture series, Archbishop Martin said the Pope’s example “inspires some and…upsets others and leaves them insecure”. “Curiously, the…

The WMOF18 is calling on artists and designers to put on their creative thinking caps to come up with a “unique and inspirational” design for the vestments to be worn by priests, bishops and the Pope himself at the masses of the World Meeting of Families in August 2018. The design “should lend itself to…

A great crafter of the spoken and written word has gone to God, writes Fr Michael Mullaney   Ronan Drury came to Maynooth as a young man in 1942 to prepare for the priesthood and, apart from three years, he lived his priesthood in this college. He had a great devotion to this place and…

Tributes have been paid to Maynooth professor Fr Ronan Drury who has died aged 93. A stalwart of the national seminary, Fr Drury taught countless generations of Irish priests the art of preaching homilies. He died on Thursday, November 16, in Dublin. A priest of the Meath Diocese, he was ordained in 1949 having begun…

Integrity was central to a major international formation conference at the national seminary, writes Greg Daly.   If there were recurring themes in last week’s international priestly formation conference in Maynooth they were ones of integrity and integration. Opening comments from Armagh’s Archbishop Eamon Martin on identity and closing ones from Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin…

The man credited with playing a major role in an upsurge in candidates for the priesthood in Britain has said those involved in vocations promotion need to understand that many young committed Catholics now consider a vocation after a conversion experience. Addressing a major conference on priestly formation in Maynooth at the weekend, Fr Christopher…

In Short After 100 years nativity statues from a North Belfast church have been restored with the help of young people, an artist, and the Housing Executive. Over time the figures were substantially damaged but restoration work from local young people, shepherded by Antrim artist Janet Crymble, has given them a new lease of life…

Ireland’s most-senior Churchman has said that governments should consider withholding foreign aid from countries where freedom of religion is not upheld. Archbishop Eamon Martin was speaking at a ceremony outside St Patrick’s Cathedral in his Armagh Archdiocese where the cathedral was illuminated in red to highlight the persecution faced by Christians in many parts of…