Encouraging lay leadership will be a key task for tomorrow’s clergy, Bishop Larry Duffy has said. Speaking at the ordination of Fr Kevin Connolly in St Macartan’s Cathedral, Monaghan, Bishop Duffy said that as a priest Fr Connolly would be called to spend time with Jesus, pondering his life and message and celebrating his presence…
Congo’s bishops said territory in the east of the country is being ceded to violent extremists, who are using the lack of government control to massacre civilians and plunder resources. “We do not understand why the Democratic Republic of Congo’s armed forces, backed by the United Nations Stabilisation Mission, have not managed to neutralise these…
Vintage clothes offer a solution to our ecological and fashion crisis, writes Madison Duddy In today’s world, fashion is one the largest polluting industries in the world. With severe ecological damage caused from ink that contaminates local streams to the unrecyclable plastic that ends up in the ocean or a landfill, dealing the fashion…
Questions of Faith If a spaceship landed on earth and we were greeted by extra-terrestrial life with our own intellectual and spiritual capabilities, how would the Church react? Assuming that these aliens came in peace, it’s fair to say that it would not contradict our Faith to baptise them. The Church has no official position…
Frenzy and Betrayal. The Anatomy of a Political Assassination by Alan Shatter (Merrion Press, €19.95) Joe Carroll Alan Shatter has had to wait five years to give his version of his political downfall in May 2014 and the long ordeal of having his name cleared by two commissions of enquiry and finally the Supreme Court.…
Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s remains have been transferred from the Archdiocese of New York to Peoria, Illinois, after three years of litigation, clearing the way for the former archbishop’s sainthood cause to go forward. Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria announced that Sheen’s remains had been transferred from St Patrick Cathedral, New York, to the Cathedral…
Medical Matters Last week saw the signing of new legislation that will allow for the operation of a Medical Cannabis Access Programme in Ireland. The law allows a medical consultant to prescribe cannabis-based products for patients who suffer with any one of three specified conditions. These include spasticity due to multiple sclerosis, intractable nausea due…
In a world that is becoming ever “busier”, books provide a gateway to evangelisation, Ossory’s Bishop Dermot Farrell has said. His comments come after he was appointed as chair of Ireland’s leading religious publisher and retailer Veritas. “It is good to be working [with] everyone at Veritas who for the past 120 years have been,…
Under the Bed by Robert Pierse (A Little Platoon, €15.00; copies from bookshops, or jm.murphy@outlook.ie / 087 1844378, for €20 inc. post and packaging) This is a collection of interesting stories, drawn from the lawyer author’s experience of many different places and people, many, however, close to home on the Munster Circuit by a solicitor…
Under persistent heavy rain and a grey overcast sky, the annual Corpus Christi Procession assembled after the 2.00pm Polish Mass, at St Conleth’s Parish Church, Kildare, to make its way down to St Eustace’s Dominican Grounds for Solemn open-air Benediction. Nothing deterred the enthusiastic participation of the congregation. Under an exquisitely embroidered antique canopy provided…
Colm Fitzpatrick
Dr Kevin McCarroll