The Ukrainian Catholic community in Ireland prayed for peace in Ukraine and the world as they celebrated Christmas in Dublin on January 7. The Mass was “very emotional”, especially for those whose sons, brothers and husbands are still in Ukraine fighting Russia, Fr Vasyl Kornitsky told The Irish Catholic. “All of us Ukrainians, in Ukraine…
Bible dating back to 1615 auctioned in Belfast A bible dating back to 1615 went under the hammer in east Belfast January 10. Part of a sale at Bloomfield Auctions from a private collection in a gentleman’s residence, the aged tome travelled from Devon with its former owner Elizabeth Pole to what is now Massachusetts,…
Four men were ordained to the diaconate across the island of Ireland last weekend, at a time of vocations crisis in Ireland. Two sets of ordinations took place on the feast of Epiphany, Friday January 6, in Derry and Sligo, and another on Sunday, January 8 in Belfast. Stephen Ward was ordained by Bishop of…
This Sunday’s Gospel (John 1:29-34) begins with John the Baptist pointing towards Jesus and saying, “Look, there is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world”. His words are repeated at Mass in order to alert us to the awesome privilege of welcoming the Lord in the Eucharist. “Behold the Lamb…
The pastor of Holy Cross parish in the Archdiocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, Fr Raúl Arrázola, denounced the violent intrusion of a group of policemen into his church on Sunday, January 1. In a statement to the Bolivian newspaper El Deber, Fr Arrázola said that a group of police officers “violated…
Michael Heinlein Since Pope Benedict’s death at age 95 on December 31, much ink has already been spilled detailing both his accomplishments and failures throughout his long life of service to the Church. In the end, though, all the coverage boils down to one question: ‘Who was the real Pope Benedict XVI?’ While it will…
The former archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, is reportedly under preliminary investigation for sexual assault on a vulnerable person, according to a report from the Archdiocese of Paris in late November 2022, French news channel BFMTV reported. According to the TV channel’s report, the allegations date back to 2011 and concern a vulnerable former parishioner,…
Pope Francis called on ambassadors to the Holy See to safeguard the rights of the unborn to “combat the throwaway culture”. The address to the diplomatic corp took place on Monday, January 9 and was attended by Ireland’s Ambassador to the Holy See, as well ambassadors across Europe and the US, where debates around abortion…
After more than two months in detention in Eritrea, Bishop Fikremariam Hagos Tsalim and Fr Mehereteab Stefanos have been released, several sources have reported. The 52-year-old bishop heads the Eritrean Catholic Eparchy of Segheneity. Fr Stefanos, before his imprisonment, was a parish priest at St Michael’s Parish in the same eparchy. It is still unknown…
It’s commonly argued in today’s world that science and faith are in conflict. Some ardently go so far as to suggest that science and the discoveries about the natural world that it’s made possible to invalidate faith, making religion a superstitious thing of the past. The idea at the core of this argument is that…
Ruadhán Jones