Unvaccinated Catholics asked not to attend Mass by English parish A parish in England has asked Catholics not to attend Mass if they are “not vaccinated and/or won’t wear a mask”. The Parish of the Holy Family, East Nottingham, in central England, issued the request most recently in a newsletter dated December 26. Under the heading “Keeping safe,”…
Pope Francis said on Wednesday that it is a civilisational loss when dogs and cats replace children in society, encouraging couples to “take the risk” to become parents. “The other day, I was talking about the demographic winter that we have today … many couples do not have children because they do not want to,…
Pro-religious freedom groups have welcomed the decision of Europe’s highest court to reject a claim by a Belfast man that he was discriminated against after Christian bakers refused to make a cake with a message promoting same-sex marriage. In a definitive judgement delivered this morning (Thursday) the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said the…
The French Catholic sociologist Olivier Roy has pointed that many previous concepts of ‘sin’ and ‘transgression’ have been transferred, in modern secular states, to the law, and are re-classified as ‘crimes’. A vivid example arises with the new proposed Scottish law against ‘hate crimes’, due to come into force this year. To hate someone, to…
In situations of extreme poverty, war or civil tensions, 22 Catholic church workers were murdered in 2021, according to Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news agency. The 13 priests, one religious brother, two religious sisters and six laypeople gave witness to their faith “in impoverished, degraded social contexts, where violence is the rule of life, the…
Birth of a State; the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Micheál Ó Fathartaigh and Liam Weeks (Irish Academic Press, €19.95/£17.99) The Treaty: the gripping story of the negotiations that brought about Irish independence and led to the Civil War, Gretchen Friemann (Merrion Press, €16.95) Apart from two commemorative stamps issued by An Post, the centenary of the signing of…
The View The pandemic has left an already battered Church facing even more challenges, including financial woes. Great uncertainty hangs over 2022 but that is true of every year. Do we have unrealistic expectations of safety and comfort? Our ancestors had lower expectations of life because they knew disaster could strike at any moment. I…
Since Christmas, the Missionaries of Charity have been strictly rationing the food and daily use items for their regular 600 beneficiaries at their motherhouse and Shishu Bhavan, a children’s orphanage. On January 2, the breakfast of tea, bread, and eggs was cut short by an hour. “As long as you did it to one of…
People want and need the faith, so we should offer it to them, writes Ruadhán Jones Towards the end of last year, this paper reported on a new survey which found that 51% of 18 to 34-year-olds pray regularly, compared with 24% of over-50s. This news, we were told, is a hopeful sign and should…
A priest at the funeral of the third victim of a road crash in Co. Tyrone said his community has paid a great price for the failure to upgrade the A5. Fr Michael O’Dwyer made his comments as hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of Nathan Corrigan (20). Petey McNamee (20) from Sixmilecross and…
Michael Kelly
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
Ruadhán Jones