Two new alternatives to burial and cremation fail to comply with the Catholic Church’s teaching on respect for the bodies of the dead, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine said. In a March 23 statement, the committee said it had evaluated human composting and alkaline hydrolysis, and concluded that both “fail to…
Saint of the week The life of this great servant of God appeared to be merely the unfolding and an ever-stronger exemplification of the virtues which he received in holy baptism. Born in 1390 of wealthy and devout parents at Valladolid in Spain, he lost his father at an early age; but he himself became…
To walk in the footsteps of Jesus is quite simply breath-taking, writes Elaine Noonan A trip to the Holy Land had been on my mind for some time. I had hoped to be able to go during the year of my 40th birthday, but then lockdowns happened and that birthday came and went. So when…
Lorene Hanley Duquin Today, parishioners are expected to feel a true sense of ownership in their parish. That means looking at your parish as more than just a place where you go to Mass. A parish can be a sacred place where the human and the divine meet, where people of all ages grow in…
Malawi is still reeling from the consequences of Cyclone Freddy that hit the southeastern African country on March 12. The storm system caused flooding and mudslides that have resulted in the deaths of about 500 people, according to Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) earlier this month. More than 490,000 people have been displaced…
As faith communities we need to support those who feel afraid to express their faith writes Fr Barry Matthews As an eight-year-old celebrating pretend Mass in the sitting room of our Dundalk home I understood something of the importance of the role God played in my life. The innocence of childhood mixed with the innate…
Renowned performer Andrea Bocelli invites us to join him on a unique pilgrimage, writes Andrew Petiprin In recent years, the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli has enjoyed international success while frequently offering traditional Christian songs to a mass audience. Blind since the age of 12 and experiencing significant success as a singer while only in his…
Mass for Easter Sunday will be broadcast live at 10am on RTÉ One television from the Swiss city of Fribourg. The Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Charles Morerod OP in the Church of St Peter, with commentary and translation by Michael Kelly, Editor of The Irish Catholic. The Mass will begin at x. The…
Letter from Rome Justin McLellan The people behind chatbots are asking questions of priests and ethicists rather than turning to their artificially intelligent creations. They want to know: What is consciousness? What is the nature of humanity? What is the purpose of life? According to Fr Phillip Larrey, dean of the philosophy department at the…
The news the other day from the Office of Public Works, that some vandal had scrawled the word ‘fraud’ across the standing stone on the Hill of Tara was dismaying. There is a programme underway to increase the visitor interest in the place, which decades ago lost out in popularity to Newgrange and the other…
Peter Costello