The World Health Organisation has been issuing advice to women: do not drink any alcohol during your childbearing years. Because most women, from adolescence to menopause, are likely to become mothers, and boozing mothers can produce infants with the distressing Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. I wonder if I had been given such advice, when I was…
Larry Donnelly A few years ago now, I wrote in this newspaper about my determination to bring my young son, Larry Óg, to Mass with me every week. My resolve remains strong and, though he does sometimes protest, my namesake typically attends on Sundays with his parents at St Patrick’s Church here in Wicklow Town. Of…
After Fr Ger Nash appeared to support calls for the ordination of women in an interview with The Clare Champion, he stated that he “fully accepts” that ordination of women “is not in our Church”. In an interview with the The Clare Champion June 18, the bishop-elect of Ferns was asked if he believes women…
As filming for Disney’s hit Disenchanted gets underway, Fr Bernard Kennedy of Enniskerry said the fantasy setting is “lifting people’s spirits” in his parish. “It’s attracting quite a large turnout of people, particularly over the weekend. It’s like a local Disneyland,” Fr Kennedy told The Irish Catholic. The town has been transformed for shooting of…
The reality is that without fresh funding the work of safeguarding in the Church will fall behind, writes Michael Kelly “Hearts and minds have been changed, but there is no room for complacency” – that was the upbeat yet cautious assessment of the head of the independent body monitoring safeguarding in the Church this week.…
Thousands of people have taken refuge in churches and convents as Myanmar’s military continues to fight local resistance forces. Ucanews.com reported Catholic and other Christian churches have become the main refuge for thousands of people forced to flee from their homes during conflict in Kayah, Chin, Kachin and Shan states. Churches and convents have opened…
Fatima (2020) will be released in cinemas across the island of Ireland and on all digital platforms Friday June 25, after a series of delays due to Covid. The film, about the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, will be shown in five cinemas in Co. Cork and two in Dublin, as well…
Gurranabraher parish, Co. Cork, received the funds from the Heritage Council of Ireland, having discovered that the Church gates were created in 1905 by a renowned local craftsman. Fr Tom Walsh PP at the Church of Ascension Parish said they were surprised to discover the “treasure in their midst”, when a parishioner told them the…
Fr Ger Nash tells Ruadhán Jones about the hopes and challenges of his new position Becoming a bishop is a daunting prospect, whatever your age or experience. Fr Ger Nash, who celebrates 30 years as a priest this year, knows this well, having been diocesan secretary of Killaloe for the last 13 years. Asked if…
As a consequence of the US Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling June 17 in Fulton v. Philadelphia, faith-based and other agencies across the country may not be forced by a government agency to violate their deeply held beliefs against placing children in households led by same-sex or cohabitating adults. In a decision seen as a victory…
Mary Kenny
Ruadhán Jones
Michael Kelly