UCD students who believe their student union should cease calling for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution have hailed as a moral victory a referendum defeat in the college.   UCD Students for Fair Representation (UCDSFFR) said they are “truly heartened and energised” by the campaign that ended with a 36% vote…

The family at the centre of the Ashers Bakery case has sent a message of thanks to the thousands of supporters in Northern Ireland who stood with them throughout the so-called ‘gay cake’ row. In a letter to churches and individual backers, Daniel McArthur, the general manager of Ashers, wrote: “I write to say how…

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin pictured with students of the Holy Family School for the Deaf in Cabra, Dublin, where the archbishop led the school’s inaugural Mass on October 26.   The Mass marked the opening of the school year at the amalgamated St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys and St Mary’s School for Deaf Girls, located…

Fr Pat Egan SDB recalls the late Fr Michael Ross

A High Court case to determine the legal status of a child born through surrogacy who was later discovered to have no genetic link to the commissioning parents highlights the “contested, ambivalent and undecided character of contemporary kinship arrangements”, a specialist in bioethics has said.   Describing the surrogacy case as “tragic”, David Mullins told…

Belfast-based priests and lay volunteers will accept the challenge of Pope Francis to bring the Gospel to people where they are with an ambitious plan to reach-out to pre-Christmas shoppers. Clonard Redemptorists have announced that the Kennedy Shopping Centre will host a ‘Mercy Tent’ on November 18 and 19, allowing busy shoppers to take time…

The Church’s leading prelate in England and Wales has criticised his country’s leadership for “trading in fear” around the question of migrants and the Brexit referendum. In an interview with the BBC, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster said it “what we seem to be living with is a kind of popular leadership which is basing…

An Iraqi man prepares a makeshift altar for the fi rst Sunday Mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh after it was recaptured from Islamic State militants. Photo: CNS

Louisiana court rules in favour of Confessional seal A court in the US state of Louisiana has ruled that a priest is not compelled to report information of a criminal nature received during Confession. The judgement, handed down by the state’s Supreme Court, arose from a case in the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge in…

Declining vocations coupled with falling Mass attendance may see churches in the Diocese of Limerick unable to offer weekly Sunday Masses in the future, Bishop Brendan Leahy has warned. Speaking during a wide-ranging interview with The Limerick Leader, the bishop readily acknowledged the scale of challenges facing his diocese in the modern era. “We are…