A fundraising ball for health services in Co. Clare, prompted by a young woman’s unshakeable belief in angels, will take place this May 20. The Pink Angel Ball owes its name to the description Maureen Lavery offered of the figure she said was accompanying her through her final months with terminal cancer. Maureen died in…
The shocking extent of alleged clerical sexual abuse in Australia has been revealed for the first time to the commission established to investigate such cases. Undertaking its work since 2013, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Monday last, during a sitting in Sydney, that 7% of Catholic priests in…
Christian leaders in the Middle East have condemned as “divisive” moves by US President Donald Trump to prioritise Christian refugees while barring others from entry to America. Responding to the president’s executive order against seven Muslim-majority nations and his signalling of preferential treatment of Christian refugees, Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo in Syria said any…
Catholic leaders in Pakistan have reacted angrily to the acquittals of all 115 suspects charged in relation to the devastating 2013 attack on the Christian community of Joseph Colony in Lahore, north-west Pakistan. The suspects had been identified as being part of a 3,000-strong mob which stormed through the district, torching at least 100 Christian…
Valentine’s Day gets a re-boot for couples Irish couples are being encouraged to get all loved up this St Valentine’s Day as part of the countdown to next year’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin. The event’s organisers are hopeful that, since Dublin is also home to the famous Shrine of St Valentine the patron…
The government of Hungary has said it aims to make the country a hub for and supporter of organisations tackling Christian persecution worldwide. In an address to a conference in Budapest attended by Christian advocacy groups, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry for Human Resources, Bence Rétvári, pointed out that Hungary was the first nation…
School children taking part in the Laudate Festival last week in Our Lady of Victories Church, Dublin.The Laudate Project aims to encourage children and their families across the generations to learn, recall and sing hymns together in schools and parishes. Photo: John McElroy
Anti-Semitic crimes in Britain have surged to their highest levels on record, new figures from a monitoring group have revealed. According to records compiled by the Community Security Trust (CST), there were 1,309 incidents of anti-Semitism across 2016, a figure which surpassed the previous record of 1,182 recorded in 2014. The majority of crimes against…
The actor Denzel Washington has described himself as “a God-fearing man” during an awards ceremony speech. Already a two-time Academy award winner – for his roles in Training Day and Glory – Washington added to his accolades in recent weeks with a Screen Actors Guild award for his performance in Fences, signalling a potential third…
Religious orders ‘haemorrhaging’ members, cardinal reveals The secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has sounded a warning on the “haemorrhaging” of people from religious life. Interviewed by L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal José Rodríguez Carballo revealed that between 2015 and 2016, some 2,300 monks and nuns had left their…
Paul Keenan
Michael Kelly