Family involves a lifelong commitment from parents and structures should exist to support parents, writes Fiona McCarthy

Mary’s role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Devotional prayer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, has always been the centre-piece within Catholic piety. Among other things, those devotions have focused upon various Marian shrines, places where Mary allegedly appeared, Lourdes, Knock, Fatima, Guadalupe, Medjugorje, among other places. Karl Rahner, studying the phenomenon of Marian apparitions, points out that all these apparitions have…

The apparition at Knock symbolises hope for suffering people, writes Archbishop Michael Neary

We should not “treat churches merely as community halls”, writes Andrew O’Connell

The more things change, the more they stay the same. That axiom still holds true for our understanding of suicide. Despite all the advances in our understanding, there are still a number of stigmas around suicide, one of which pertains to how we write the obituary of a loved one who dies in this way.…

The Church teaches that the sacraments are both ever-living and life-giving, writes Cathal Barry

The current retreat from politics means that the bishops have no vision of the common good writes David Quinn

Why Saverio Bellante was taken off medication is the enduring mystery, writes Michael Kelly

In life “you must put your dreams aside and count your blessings instead”, writes Mary Kenny