The Vatican hosted a virtual listening session with Catholics with disabilities May 19 as part of the Synod on Synodality process. People from more than 20 countries participated in the video call hosted by the Vatican Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life on May 19, with some expressing concerns about experiences of discrimination and exclusion. A participant…
Medical Matters Figures this year show that life expectancy in Ireland is now the highest in the EU at 82.6 years with the gap between females and males narrowing in the last decade. Women are now living to 84.1 and men 80.5 years which compares to a mean age of 76.6 years about two decades…
A bill aimed at tackling legacy and reconciliation in the North of Ireland must be focused on victim groups rather than on British army veterans the bishop of Derry has said. Bishop Donal McKeown told The Irish Catholic the bill is “a huge step forward” as previously the British government was pushing for the ending…
Religious sisters feel they can’t even be listened to respectfully, writes Garry O’Sullivan “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones,” William Shakespeare writes in Julius Caesar. “You would think we were evil” a source close to the Religious Sisters of Charity told The Irish Catholic…
Pentagon committed to understanding UFO origins Two top US defence intelligence officials have said the Pentagon is committed to determining the origins of what the US government calls “unidentified aerial phenomena” in the first public congressional hearing in more than 50 years concerning what are commonly known as UFOs. The two officials, Ronald Moultrie and…
Staff reporter A push to speed up the availability of abortion services in the North of Ireland has been dubbed “undemocratic” by pro-life group Precious Life. This comes after the British government’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis approved new powers allowing him to accelerate the widespread commissioning of abortion services, saying it was…
If Irish bishops believe in a strong pro-life witness they should look to the US for leadership, writes David Quinn The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, has written a letter telling one of America’s most powerful politicians, Nancy Pelosi, that she cannot receive Holy Communion in his archdiocese. Ms Pelosi, a Democratic Congresswoman, is…
Ireland’s Great Famine, Britain’s Great Failure William H. A. Williams (Anthem Press, £80.00/€94.00) It is impossible to write about certain matters, even in a scholarly context, without feelings of outrage. The Irish Famine of 1845-49, the subject of this new book by William H. A. Williams, an American historian who taught at University College Dublin…
The US bishops’ chairman on international justice and peace May 19 lauded the government’s decision to ease sanctions on Cuba. “We commend the Administration’s renewed interest in restarting US engagement with Cuba. Recognising that points of contention remain between our two countries, Cuba’s punitive isolation has not produced the economic and social change that the…
Personal Profile There are stereotypes that the college academic profession is a hostile one for Catholics, but law lecturer in IT Sligo Leonard Taylor has never found that to be the case. Having nurtured a love for truth and knowledge in Maynooth, he finds that Catholic teaching still has a big role to play in…
Dr Kevin McCarroll
Chai Brady
David Quinn
Ruadhán Jones