Ann Marie Foley Portlaoise is growing as a commuter town and in diversity, and the parish is something of a ‘United Nations’ of priests and religious from Brazil, China, Romania, Indonesia and India serving with PP Msgr John Byrne, PPVG and a local Deacon Eugene Keyes. “When I came here (in 2000) I was one…
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Monks carrying hope in the Holy Land
Br Justin Robinson OSB The Sea of Galilee laps gently against the shoreline at Tabgha Priory, a Benedictine monastery offering an oasis of peace in an otherwise troubled Holy Land. Over the past year, the soundscape of war has enveloped the small community of monks who live, pray and work at the place where…
Slow down and prepare the way
Gift yourself with precious time for your own spiritual recharge, says Peter Kasko It’s that time of the year again. The time when we often tend to forget our humanity, to some extent, and pursue all that is not important. In Matthew (chapter 6), Jesus reminds us not to worry, “but strive for the kingdom…
Notre Dame Cathedral back in the light after glorious reopening
Solène Tadié (CNA) The doors of the newly restored Notre-Dame of Paris Cathedral were officially reopened to the public during a ceremony last Saturday evening just over five years after a blaze ravaged the iconic structure’s roof, frame, and spire. Authorities mobilised a massive security force of some 6,000 police and gendarmes for the event,…
The path that leads to joy
Fr Joshua J. Whitfield Zep 3:14-18a Is 12:2-3, 4, 5-6 Phil 4:4-7 Lk 3:10-18 The point is summed up in what Josef Pieper wrote once, that “we are not the forgers of our own felicity.” Of course, he wasn’t at all the only one to say something like this, such has always been true.…
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land is safe again, says Patriarch
KNA “Pilgrimage is now absolutely safe and also important for society,” the head of Catholics in the Holy Land said recently on a trip to Germany. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, is counting on a rapid normalisation of pilgrimage tourism following the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. He hopes that the relative…
The slave girl who became a saint
Fr Adrian Crowley St Josephine Bakhita was born in 1869, in Sudan. Her village was surrounded by palms, banana trees, fields, shrubs. Her tribe lived peacefully, working the fields. Her father was an important man in the village. As a child she was full of life and joyful, loved her brothers and helped her…
Nicaraguan dictatorship kidnaps and expels another pries
Walter Sánchez Silva (CNA) The Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, this week kidnapped and expelled from the country Fr Floriano Ceferino Vargas, a priest of the Diocese of Bluefields. Medardo Mairena, a former peasant leader now in exile, stated on X that “Fr Floriano Ceferino Vargas, parish priest of the…
Surely we are not so miserly
Dear Editor, As I sit here tonight my wife is in the next room being treated by the palliative care team. She was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour and her life expectancy was estimated to be 3 or 4 months. I struggled for a few weeks trying to help her as she needed to…
Archbishop Scicluna says synod discussions need to be clear
KNA Archbishop Scicluna of Malta has warned against using the methods of the World Synod’s spiritual dialogue – an alternation of speaking and meditation without direct discussion – everywhere in the Church: “If, for example, I have to deal with financial experts for the audit of the Archdiocese of Malta, I don’t need to have…