From the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI General Audience at the Paul VI Audience Hall on September 3, 2008. Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today’s Catechesis is dedicated to the experience that Paul had on his way to Damascus, and therefore on what is commonly known as his conversion. It was precisely on the road…
Pope Francis sent a message to Donald Trump on the occasion of his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, offering prayers for “wisdom, strength, and protection” in the exercise of his duties and invoking blessings upon the “beloved American people”. In the message, released by the Holy See Press Office…
Nigeria was the country with the most Christians killed and kidnapped in 2024, according to the latest report from advocacy group Open Doors. The World Watch List, released January 15, found that 3,100 Christians were killed and 2,830 Christians were kidnapped in Nigeria in 2024, far more than other countries in the same year. The…
Fr Aquinas Duffy “I suspect that if there is no real radical change in the immediate future, then the priests left will find themselves on a quicker path to the eternal world” We have just begun a new Jubilee Year. We are reminded that we are called to be “Pilgrims of Hope”. I…
Matt Letourneau In late 2024 it was announced that the Cistercians were to leave Mount Mellaray and the future of the monastery is uncertain. Earlier in the summer we visited Melleray and spoke to the then Abbot and we decided to repeat the feature now as a tribute to the monks and the historic monastery.…
Fr Paul Clayton-Lea Despite the turbulence and pressure surrounding the Church in recent decades the vast majority of Irish Catholic parents and many non-Catholic ones too, remain strongly attached to the choice of Catholic schools for their children. This confidence and determination of today’s young parents to defend and maintain their bond with Catholic schools…
In Good Time: A Memoir, by Martin O’Brien (Red Stripe Press, €15.99 / £14.79). J. Anthony Gaughan The Good Friday Agreement is a pair of Agreements signed on April 10 (Good Friday) 1998 which ended most of the urban warfare and violence of the previous thirty years in Northern Ireland. It is made…
A commentary by Jon Rosebank Practised with humility,” write the bishops in their final document from the 2024 Assembly (47), “the synodal style enables the Church to be a prophetic voice in today’s world.” We live, they write, “in an age marked by ever-increasing inequalities” and by “disenchantment with the functioning of democracy.” Students of…
The season of Advent has been a time of preparation for the great Feast of Christmas. The feeling of anticipation built as we got ever closer, week by week. The candles on the Advent wreath got lit, one by one. Their glow became ever brighter. What was it that we anticipated? The celebration of the…
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…