Killaloe’s Bishop Fintan Monahan has welcomed an ambitious new plan to revive rural Ireland and said the Church will do its best to be proactive in maintaining rural life. The bishop’s comments come following the announcement of ‘Realising our Rural Potential: Action Plan for Rural Development’, a €60 million plan intended to revive Ireland’s rural…
Eight people took their own lives in Cork last weekend according to a Dáil deputy from the city. “My phone was hopping all weekend. If it was a minibus with eight people killed it would be national news,” Sinn Féin TD Pat Buckley told The Irish Catholic. Deputy Buckley, who lost two brothers to death…
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began yesterday (Wednesday) with an official inauguration service at the Church of Ireland parish in Taney in south Dublin. This year the event occurs while the Catholic bishops are in Rome at their ad limina meeting with the Pope, so no Catholic bishops will be present at ecumenical…
The North’s coming election is about a struggle between the two traditions on this island, writes Bishop Donal McKeown Bishop Donal McKeown The entire Brexit project remains a step into the unknown for everybody. Thus we remain unclear as to the possible effects, especially on border counties. But what history tells us is that Belfast,…
The bishops of Malta have issued guidelines allowing for people living in “irregular” unions to receive Communion. In a new 35-page document dealing specifically with implementation of the section of the papal exhortation Amoris Laetitia on divorced-and-remarried Catholics (Chapter VIII), the bishops go beyond the language of the exhortation to stress to their priests that…
A chapel built over the ruins of the Great Synagogue of Palermo in Sicily has been transferred to the Jewish community to renew Jewish worship on the site for the first time in 500 years. An official ceremony on January 12 saw the Oratory of Santa Maria al Sabato transferred from the control of the…
The head of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference has issued a plea to his government to open humanitarian channels to allow the Church’s aid agency Caritas to distribute desperately needed medicines and basic goods. Addressing a gathering of his fellow prelates in Caracas, Archbishop Diego Rafael Padrón Sánchez said the ongoing economic crisis in the nation…
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al Sisi has pledged to construct the nation’s largest church as part of the massive project to create a new capital city. During his official visit to St Mark’s cathedral in Cairo to join with Pope Tawadros II and other members of the Coptic Church for the January 6 Christmas celebrations,…
Fine Gael have been accused of attacking parish-owned schools in a bid to distract from Government failures to tackle overcrowding in Ireland’s primary schools. Addressing a seminar organised by a campaigning group opposed to religion playing a role in school admissions, Education Minister Richard Bruton announced plans to abolish the so-called ‘baptism rule’ that allows…
French presidential contender Marine Le Pen has criticised her main rival for linking his political credentials to his Christian faith. The far-right candidate Le Pen, who has scored political points in criticising the nation’s Muslim community, stated that Francois Fillon’s referencing of his Catholic faith is at odds with France’s secular tradition. “The French are…
Greg Daly
Susan Gately