The Church has thrown its support behind an ambitious new film series aimed to energise young Christians and help them tackle doubts they might have about their Faith. The eight-part NUA film series was launched at Dublin’s Gonzaga College last month ahead of the release of census figures that show significant declines in numbers of…
Congo’s bishops say Catholics are facing a new wave of violence following the collapse of a Church mediation plan, and in some places Church leaders have fled to the forest. In late March, the bishops abandoned attempts to arrange a government-opposition power-sharing settlement and, within days, violence erupted in eastern Congo. “The militias are continuing…
Award participants from Scoil Bhríde, Mercy Secondary School, Tuam, Co. Galway at the 10th anniversarycelebration of the Pope John Paul II Award in Knock Shrine. Photo: Stephen Latimer.
The number of baptised Catholics in the world grew to 1.285 billion an increase of 1% year on year according just released Vatican statistics. The latest statistical yearbook reports that the countries with the most Catholics account for almost 56% of the world’s Catholic population. The top 10 Catholic populations are (in order): Brazil, Mexico,…
The most striking thing about the 2016 census is how it points to the resilience of Irish Catholic identity, a leading Church number-cruncher has said. According to the census, Catholics now make up 78.3% of Ireland’s population, down from 84.2% five years ago, with the number of Catholics in the country having dropped by 132,000,…
A priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia responsible for a retirement home for priests faces charges of embezzling more than $535,000 (€503,000) from that same home. Msgr William Dombrow, 77, was charged by the US District Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia April 5 with four counts of wire fraud in a scheme he is alleged to…
Modern Masses have caused disaster, devastation and schism in the Church, the head of the Vatican’s liturgy department has said. In an address sent to a conference in Germany, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, said the Church is currently undergoing a “serious crisis” underestimated by…
Iraqi Christians driven from the Nineven Plains by the so-called Islamic State are looking forward to moving home, with Church leaders having assembled a taskforce to spearhead a vast rebuilding programme. The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, formed from bishops from the Syriac Catholic, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic Churches, will oversee the planning and rebuilding of…
Venezuela’s bishops have described a Supreme Court decision to eliminate the country’s National Assembly as “morally unacceptable”. Saying Venezuela’s Catholics cannot remain “passive, frightened, or hopeless”, they have called for peaceful protests and civil disobedience to the government of President Nicholas Maduro. The abolition of the assembly, which opposition parties have dominated for over a…
Unfounded claims of abuse remain a grave fear for many Irish priests, while clergy often distrust their bishops, according to the minutes of two meetings of the Association of Catholic priests last month. Safeguarding was a central issue at the ACP South meeting, which considered the rights of clergy when faced with allegations. “Solicitors feel…
Greg Daly
Courtney McGrail