President Michael D. Higgins is expected to meet with Pope Francis during a visit to Rome next week. The visit, which is set to take place in the Vatican’s Papal Library, will be the first private meeting between the two heads of state. President Higgins previously met the Pontiff at the papal inauguration ceremony in…

Pop superstar Rita Ora has revealed that one of her proudest moments was performing at the Vatican last year, at a ceremony to mark the canonisation of Mother Teresa, a fellow native of Kosovo. “Oh, it was beautiful,” she said. “To hear my voice in that room – incredible reverb, by the way – was…

Teachers and parents need support in helping prepare children for Christian lives, a leading theologian has said. Speaking after an education conference in Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College, which discussed whether sacramental preparation should be taken out of schools, Prof. Eamonn Conway said the conference affirmed the importance of very close working relationships between parents, parish,…

Staff reporter The Northern bakery run by a Christian couple who last year lost a discrimination case over refusing to make a cake advocating same-sex marriage saw their profits rise in 2016. Controversy around Daniel and Amy McArthur’s Ashers Baking Company’s 2014 refusal to make a cake bearing the slogan ‘Support gay marriage’ has not…

Draft educational legislation would destroy faith-based schools, religious freedom think-tank The Iona Institute has warned. It was responding to the ‘Equal Participation in Schools Bill’ proposed by Ruth Coppinger TD. The draft proposes to take away the right of denominational schools to have a religious ethos and would require religious education to take place outside…

Fr Mathew statue not returning to O’Connell Street A statue of Fr Theobald Mathew, founder of the temperance movement in Ireland, will not be returned to O’Connell Street after the completion of the Luas works in Dublin. The statue, erected in 1893, cannot be accommodated in the new transport layout and discussions are ongoing between…

Campaigner Marie Collins has welcomed praise for her from Pope Francis as support for her work and her reasons about stepping down from the Vatican child protection commission earlier this year. “It was nice to hear the Pope’s comments about myself, and it is I suppose a validation of the work I’ve done and the…

The Church in Ireland now looks to the next generation of priests for renewal, according to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Speaking at the priestly ordination of Edward Cosgrove SJ in the chapel of Milltown Park on Sunday, the Archbishop of Dublin told the Jesuit he had “become a priest at a new time in the history…

Staff Reporter A young rugby player has revealed the strength he receives from his faith, speaking at a Mass to celebrate sport in his parish in Co. Sligo. Connacht prop and Irish under-20 squad member, Conan O’Donnell, told St Patrick’s in Strandhill that “God is important in my life”. “My faith was nurtured by regular…

EXCLUSIVE Irish missionaries stand with people in war-torn South Sudan Irish missionaries working in war-torn South Sudan have vowed to stay with the people struggling with starvation and bloodshed, despite knowing they are in danger of being attacked at any moment. South Sudan has become the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian emergency with warnings that many people…