Ireland will provide €6m to two struggling African countries that have been ravaged by war and chronic poverty. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) are among the poorest countries in the world, with food insecurity and malnutrition affecting 6.4 million people. Each country will receive €3m from Ireland through…
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has expressed his “humanitarian concern” for Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish citizen still awaiting trial in Egypt after four years of imprisonment. The Archbishop of Dublin used the visit of Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria as an opportunity to highlight the 21-year-old’s case in front of the Egyptian ambassador during a meeting at…
An Irish priest known for his work protecting children in danger of trafficking and abuse has briefed the Oireachtas on the depraved tortures faced by vulnerable young people. Fr Shay Cullen, a Columban missionary, has been fighting horrific treatment of women and children in the Philippines, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize…
Actor Sean Bean, who has taken on one of his most “nerve-wracking” roles playing a hard-working Catholic priest, has said he discovered through his experience how “selfless” priests are. Known for action roles in Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, in a new six-part BBC drama written by Jimmy McGovern the actor plays…
Chai Brady President Michael D. Higgins has expressed the hope that Pope Francis will travel North of the border during an expected visit to Ireland next summer. In a 15-minute meeting with Mr Higgins in Rome the Pope said the prospect of a visit to the North was a possibility. Mr Higgins told the Pontiff…
“There has never been a greater need for mutual understanding and cooperation”, writes Michael Kelly Sadly we’re becoming all-too-used to that sinking feeling of waking up in the morning to turn on the radio to news of yet another terrorist atrocity in towns and cities that are known to us. That feeling is all-the-more heart-wrenching…
Cadet Jerome Scully from the 93rd cadet class conducts the cadet school choir from the Curragh at the annual international military pilgrimage in Lourdes this week. Photo: La Caze
Mags Gargan and Chai Brady New missionaries will ‘inject new life’ Irish parishioners are being urged to embrace new thinking and a new wave of missionaries from overseas as a way to revitalise the Church in Ireland. Decades after Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich provoked derision in the 1980s by saying the Church in Ireland would…
Over 90% of British women want a ban on sex-selective abortion, with 70% wanting the time limits for abortion to be lowered and 59% wanting the limit lowered to 16 weeks or lower, according to a new poll of 2,008 adults conducted by ComRes. Although abortion is theoretically illegal in British law, doctors are exempt…
“Justice must be allowed to run its course,” in connection with child abuse charges levelled in Australia at Cardinal George Pell, who has headed the Vatican’s Secretariat of the Economy since 2014, according to Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher. Maintaining that the cardinal is entitled to the presumption of innocence while the “impartial pursuit of justice”…
Mags Gargan
Chai Brady
Michael Kelly
Courtney McGrail