Staff Reporter Ballyfermot residents who have blocked efforts to begin work on a €12million social housing development are concerned about the lack of resources in the area, according to their parish priest. The housing co-operative Nabco was given permission in 2008 to build the houses at a site owned by Dublin City Council in Ballyfermot’s…

Members of the Pro Life Campaign outside the Central Bank in Dublin at the launch of the LoveBoth Project to highlight the benefits of Ireland’s constitutional protections for the unborn. The project advocates the introduction of more practical supports for families facing unplanned or difficult pregnancies.

The Catholic Church in the Philippines has indicated it may have to cancel services during the Advent and Christmas periods following a bomb attack at a church on the first Sunday of Advent. The blast happened on November 27 at a church in the city of Esperanza, on the island of Mindanao, and appears to…

Norwegian diocese fined for overstating Catholic numbers A Catholic diocese in Norway has been fined for overstating its number of faithful in order to receive a greater amount of state aid. Investigators in Oslo believe that diocesan staff went through telephone directories to locate the names of immigrants whose names suggested a Catholic country as…

A Catholic bishop from Sudan has criticised the European Union’s ongoing support for the Sudanese government and called for the bloc to instead contribute to a peaceful settlement to the “hidden and forgotten conflict” there.  Speaking in Brussels, where he was a guest of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE),…

The US bishops’ head of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty has called on President-elect Donald Trump to undo those executive orders and mandates enacted by President Barack Obama which, the bishops insist, negatively impact on religious liberty. In a guest column for Catholic News Service, Archbishop William Lori writes: “The federal government has…

Britain’s Prime Minister Teresa May has said Christians should be able to speak openly of their faith in the workplace.  Ms May’s comments came in response to an intervention by MP Fiona Bruce during Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament last week in which she raised concerns felt by Christians that they could be disciplined or…

Vatican watchdog will not comment on Amoris Laetitia issue As the row about the Pope’s Amoris Laetitia encyclical continues, the prefect for the Congregation of the Faith (CDF) has said that he cannot respond to the questions – the dubia – posed by four cardinals in a letter to the Pontiff. Speaking during an interview…

‘Time to re-imagine parish and diocese’ – Primate

People pray on the feast of St Barbara, December 4 at St Barbara Church in Havana, Cuba. Barbara was an early Christian Greek martyr, whose relics lie today in Kiev, Ukraine. Photo: CNS