The first official feast day in the Catholic Church of the 21 Coptic martyrs killed by ISIS on a Libyan beach this day nine years ago.
Pope Francis added these saints to the Roman Martyrology last May. May these holy men pray for us.
The people complaining about the Church's "obsessive" focus on sexuality in light of Fr Sheehy's homily have it totally backwards - the homily has gone viral *precisely* because priests rarely say these things in Ireland anymore.
In this week's copy of The Irish Catholic, we reveal that hundreds of young Catholics have signed a letter to Church leaders in Ireland challenging the notion that younger people want change in the Church's teaching.
‘Mass in a Connemara Cabin’
One of my favourite paintings in the National Gallery. An Ireland that is fading, but will never die. It lives on around our island in small, vibrant communities that are sowing the seeds of the future.
What an unreal tweet. God forbid a country with over 1000 years of Catholic history should have any vestiges of Catholicism in its institutions.
It's a stupid crusade we're on as a nation, and it's going to result in an impoverished country.
Thank you to the person who sent me these pictures taken an hour ago in the “fully secular” St Vincent’s Hospital
Mass in hospital oratory ☑️
Mass on hospital TV ☑️
Blessed Sacrament exposed daily ☑️
Stations of the Cross ☑️
Core Values of Sisters of Charity posted on campus ☑️
Tossing memorials to the dead around like so much driftwood makes it somewhat hard to believe that these protests are motivated by genuine, humane care for all of the lives lost in Gaza.
Good old RTÉ, always showing both sides of the argument. Here, you have 3 young women all in favour of the changes to the syllabus.
Every young person in Ireland must be behind it, and so it must be a good thing. So it goes.
Consent, recognising abusive relationships and gender inclusivity are all topics featured in a new draft Social, Personal and Health Education syllabus that will make sex education mandatory for senior cycle pupils. Here, some young people share their views on the proposals.
Rude and condescending. She takes bizarre, irrelevant swipes at religion, as well as his race, class and sex.
Delighted it's taking off on here at least, if for no other reason than people abroad can see what reasonable voices like Prof. Binchy have to deal with in Ireland.
Senator Lynn Ruane rudely harangues Prof William Binchy of the Pro-Life Campaign in this clip. She even accuses him of being a 'white, privileged man' (thereby singling out his race, class and sex).
Well, the time has come to share some personal news: After (nearly) four wonderful years, I'm finishing up this week with
@IrishCathNews
Next stop:
@griptmedia
‘In the absence of clear guidance within the constitutional text or by way of legislation, it is difficult to predict with certainty how the Irish courts would interpret the concept of “other durable relationships.”’
- Attorney general to government
Eoin Prizeman (35), who uploaded a video of a man raping a young boy to his own Facebook page and was caught with 276 videos of child abuse has been given a fully suspended sentence.
I’m in a group chat in which a young woman was asking specifically for men to help put these posters up, as a result of the abuse and intimidation you’re likely to face as you do so. Mr Compassion here would suggest she’s right to worry.
The right decision. The Church either stands for something or it stands for nothing. It is not to politicise the Eucharist, as has become a popular line recently - it's to acknowledge that actions have meaning and consequences.
@Sachinettiyil
"We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world." - G.K. Chesterton
Our last night in the Holy Land, if all goes to plan tomorrow. The most profound of pilgrimages, for an endless number of reasons. It has given us all a lot to think and pray about.
Do pray for us as we undertake our journey tomorrow morning, and for this special place.
The only way comparisons like this get a free pass is if we’ve become utterly decoupled from history.
The level of vitriol Irish commentary on Catholicism is capable of would give Polish recollections of their Nazi and Soviet oppressors a run for their money. Insane.
Sinéad O'Connor was a child of an Ireland where Irish women had, for decades, been stripped of their power, their rage, by our Taliban — the Catholic Church,
@RositaSweetman
writes.
Sorry to break it to you, but St Brigid is standing with the pro-life women you routinely ignore.
Abortion is a war on women, children and the family, and any women’s organisation worth its salt should say so.
But it’s no surprise, the NWCI has long been a joke.
➡️On St Brigid’s Day Bank Holiday, NWC and the Abortion Working Group are calling for the Government to take action on
#abortionaccess
📌Five years on from repeal, women’s access to reproductive healthcare in Ireland is still not guaranteed.
❌This isn’t good enough
Multiple questions put by Gript to the Law Society of Ireland have gone unanswered as turmoil envelops the organisation following a decision of the Law Society to endorse a ‘YesYes’ position on this Friday’s constitutional referendums.
Asked how she felt after losing her seat, Clare Daly told RTÉ News: "You had no interest in talking to me for five years so I've no interest in talking to you" | Read more:
Incredibly brave reporting from
@fatima_gunning
on the ground in Newtownmountkennedy, leaving gardaí with some MAJOR questions to answer about their behaviour tonight.
Gript Media reporter
@fatima_gunning
was pepper-sprayed this evening by a member of An Garda Siochána in Newtown Mount Kennedy, despite having repeatedly and audibly identified herself as a working journalist.
The persecution of Christians in Nigeria, and throughout the world, is one of the key issues of our time, and yet it largely takes place in silence.
God bless those like Fr Achi (and Fr Bamai) who've given of themselves so selflessly, even to death.
In this week's issue of The Irish Catholic, Fr Yusuf Bamai, a Co. Cavan-based priest from Nigeria has described how the brutal murder of his friend and fellow missionary has left him devastated.
Read this story and all the latest news at
@edwest
The entirety of Warsaw is one big memorial. I saw this in the Wola district a few years ago - a monument commemorating the 50,000 killed over a handful of days in that district during the uprising.
Nice to see
@john_mcguirk
popping up in
@TheCriticMag
"One cannot shed a faith without adopting another," he writes.
The irony of modern Ireland is that it's just as religious as ever, but we don't know it. Not so much an enlightenment as a darkening.
But out of the frying pan and into the fire!
Very excited to get started with Gript - it has consistently punched above its weight for some time now. Looking forward to joining the team and bringing some accountability to our little island, as they've done so well.
The abuse J.K. Rowling is getting for refusing to abandon the concept of biological sex is just mind-boggling. A reminder of the obscene rage the world can have in store for those who stand by any aspect of truth.
Last Friday, my family’s address was posted on Twitter by three activist actors who took pictures of themselves in front of our house, carefully positioning themselves to ensure that our address was visible. 1/8
Unbelievably grim development, all the more so because it was supported by 85% of the French public, according to this article.
One day the humanity of the unborn will be recognised, and we’ll recoil in horror at the dark fascination we had with the ‘right’ to kill them.
“Are you here to pray for the lives of unborn children?” he asks
Pro-lifers are the canary in the coal mine. Something is seriously awry when the police make your inner life their business.
🚨🚨NEW FOOTAGE 🚨🚨
Earlier this Winter officers continued to police the mind of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce - despite the court having ruled in favour of free thought. 👮♂️🚔
Do YOU think citizens should he punished for their thoughts?
🚨 IMPORTANT: the consultation on
A very important point.
The majority of people have neither the time nor the inclination to read convoluted documents out of Rome, and yet they’ll be expected to answer for the headlines that those texts generate.
Clear communications would be an act of charity.
Has the Vatican ever considered having a communications office?
They need a place where a non-Jesuit, non-theologically educated person takes whatever they are trying to say and puts it into simple human language.
I’m not being facetious.
I’ve read what just came out of Rome and
Some wonderful representations of Our Lady at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. As
@ConorMcDonough4
said, we arrived safely thanks to our brilliant driver and guide.
May she keep all of her children safe in this special, holy land.
A nice picture out of the Vatican today.
Pope Francis blesses a couple as the young man proposes to girlfriend (hopefully now his fiancée!) in St Peter's Square. Photo: CNS/Vatican Media
I knew there'd be something today.
A saint AND a goddess, no less. A bodily autonomy advocate who fought against unwanted pregnancy.
She sounds awfully modern, doesn't she?
Nice way to erase an actual woman with a caricature from the present.
Saint, goddess, bishop, beer drinker, bodily autonomy advocate – St Brigid was badass. Ireland’s only woman patron saint fought against forced marriage, sex slavery, and unwanted pregnancy, her biographers say. She held abusers to account. And now a new public holiday in her
Shout out to the small but committed group of middle-aged/elderly priests in Ireland who never tire of telling the young, practicing Catholics to "get with the times".
Abortion numbers in Ireland continue to soar ever higher, with likely over 10,000 carried out in 2023.
You cannot pretend to care about the marginalised, the most vulnerable among us, if you don't care about this. It's a blight on our nation.
BREAKING: Over 10,000 Irish abortions in 2023.
Figures released to
@CNolanOffaly
today from the HSE showed that from January to November 2023, GPs made claims for reimbursements for a total of 9,218 abortions. This does not include abortions which were carried out in a hospital
My wife and I are expecting our first child any day now. The waiting is quite unlike anything I've ever experienced, anticipation looming over everything.
Grace works according to a logic that isn't our own.
Christians are routinely slaughtered in Nigeria, we in the West routinely ignore them, and yet their churches are booming and their faith a beacon.
He uses the weak to shame the strong. Don't be complicit, speak up.
Nigerian priest Fr Innocent Sunu CC in Ss Peter & Paul parish, Athlone has warned that embattled Christians in Nigeria have been “left alone to survive” by international community following attacks over Christmas that left almost 200 dead and many injured.
Remembering this great Polish Saint today, who in 1941 volunteered to take another man’s place in a starvation bunker in Auschwitz.
“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”
St Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.
A world with fewer children will be one impoverished beyond our capacity to imagine. We don't appreciate how the fountain of youth pervades all, but we'll miss it once it's gone.
@StephenJShaw
deserves huge credit for the work he's doing on this issue.
PREMIUM: Data scientist Stephen Shaw has described the “low-fertility future” the world is facing as the "end of civilisation" - which is why he’s dedicating his career to raising awareness of it.
Pretty much all of the comments and QTs on this assume Catholic sexual teaching is the result of bishops sitting around and pooling their thoughts on the topic, rather than the offering of a 2000 year old institution near-infinitely wiser than they are.
Such a curious addition to his trip.
I’m of the (unpopular) opinion that Biden probably does hold his faith very dearly. But I think he’s also of a generation that genuinely thinks you can engage in picking and choosing which elements to believe.
Still blocked by
@DubCityCouncil
after the Christmas break, as I’m sure are many others.
I plan on following up on this. Doesn’t seem like good practice for a public body to be blocking people from access to public information for unclear reasons.
Look at those happy faces! WYD is above all about the joy of communion in Christ - what God created us for. So jealous of those in attendance, but I'm joining my prayer to theirs this week. Photo: CNS/Lola Gomez
The life of a journalist in Ireland is being kicked from pillar to post, obstructed, stonewalled, slowed down and just otherwise inconvenienced as much as possible.
BEN SCALLAN: Two months ago, I submitted an FOI request to the Department of Equality seeking info on the referendums. The request was rejected on the basis that the records were being published "shortly". Over a month later, around 8% have been released:
Very little brings out bigotry in Ireland like mention (or God forbid, praise) of female religious. The anti-Catholic sentiment they arouse is stunning.
Doctors aren't happy about the removal of the ban on the deliberate killing of patients from their ethics code, which many have interpreted as paving the way for euthanasia/assisted suicide
EXCLUSIVE
At least 250 doctors have signed a letter to the Irish Medical Council in relation to changes to the code of ethics, including removal of a prohibition against deliberate killing of a patient, and weakened conscientious protection for doctors.
Life is truly racing past, first time bringing our boy to the zoo. Last time I was there, a few years ago, my wife and I were just a couple of months into dating.
Another blow to Catholic infrastructure in Ireland today with the announcement of the forthcoming closure of Veritas Communications CLG, which will see its business wound down and remaining stores closed.
The bishops said it "represents a great loss to the Church in Ireland".
Today we remember the 21 men killed by ISIS on a beach in Libya in February 2015. They cast their lives into God’s hands, and they blessed us with a glimpse of Christ by doing so.
May we have even a fraction of their faith.
"I (and so many others) waited for the tide to turn, waited for a hero who might lift our hearts and minds again to possibility and promise," he writes.
Have you heard of Jesus, Fr Hoban? He does wonders for discontent.
Fr Brendan Hoban: My years as a Catholic priest were a long winter of discontent - until Pope Francis arrived. There is now a new springtime of hope and promise via
@irishtimesoped
#popefrancis
All you can really do is pray for peace in the Holy Land. Very aware that we can leave anytime, but the beautiful people we’ve met here are caught up in a situation far beyond their control.
We’re safe and well in Bethlehem, but spiritually very much with those suffering today.
Celebration is in the air in Poland today as the Ulma family is beatified!
Their life and death is a window into a love that triumphs over the world.
Thanks be to God for their example.
Delighted to announce that Brandon Scott will contest the Ashbourne LEA of Meath County Council in the Local Elections.
If you want to really challange the establishment parties, get organised. Join Aontú on
Roger Foley, a Canadian man with disabilities, says he's been offered euthanasia "multiple times."
Listen to him speak out against being devalued as he fights for the support he needs to live.
Struck in an eastern Polish town to see the vast majority of bikes (there were more than pictured) left unlocked, out in the open. Having had a couple of bikes stolen, it’s a sort of high-trust society that few of us have experienced. Seriously praying it doesn’t change.
It’s grievously unpopular to say, but he’s right. Those who welcome pregnancy and children as a gift , as difficult as it is sometimes, will write the future. It’s our job now to make that possible for as many women as we can.
I've been in frequent touch with a friend of mine from school, who's undergoing the most remarkable 'reversion' at the moment - the latest of many such cases I've encountered in recent years.
Ireland is turning slowly but surely, the Kingdom of God is advancing inexorably.
What an inspiring final message on voting day from the conservatives, in an age when things worth conserving are vanishing before the public's eyes:
choose us because the other guys will raise your taxes.
Amazing development on the Irish free speech front, and massive kudos to
@griptmedia
and
@Ben_Scallan
for breaking it. Whether you’re a fan of theirs or not, you’ll be thankful for the work they’ve done if this legislation progresses.
Elon Musk exclusively tells
@griptmedia
: He will challenge an Irish hate speech law in court, and pay legal bills of any Irish person who is prosecuted under it.
Another beautiful depiction of Irish faith in art…. ‘The Last General Absolution of the Munsters at Rue du Bois’
WW1 chaplain Fr Francis Gleeson is depicted absolving soldiers before a battle in which many died. The Irishman’s courage is well remembered to this day.
@frankbrowne2
Speaking about sin doesn't make the Church less loving or inclusive - we can talk about how best to approach these understandably sensitive topics, but to skirt around the reality of sin doesn't do anyone any favours.
Three years ago today. We heard in the Gospel that day, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another".
We've tried to walk in that way since then, and haven't regretted it for a moment.
Just because a case is "simpler" doesn't mean a Presenting Officer isn't needed; it gives an applicant’s legal representative opportunity to challenge the State's decision, without any input from the Minister’s representative.
Minister for Justice tells
@fatima_gunning
that despite the state not defending increasing numbers of asylum refusal appeals, about 70% of refusals are upheld by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal.
The Irish Catholic has been a fantastic workplace, and I'll be forever grateful for the experience and memories I've gained there. It's a real national institution, one that deserves the esteem it's held in by so many.
"I am greatly in debt to God. He gave me such great grace, that through me, many people should be born again in God and brought to full life."
And we are greatly in debt to our patron saint. May St Patrick continue to bless us even today. Happy St Patrick's Day!
Warsaw's mayor has banned the display of religious symbols such as crosses from city hall.
He has also ordered officials to respect the rights of same-sex couples and to use people’s preferred pronouns
Just days after the Government once again 'gets tough' on crime in the city centre, there's a knife fight involving what appeared to be a machete on Talbot street.
Pure decline.
Just back today from this lovely, long weekend with some incredibly inspiring people.
The sacraments, common prayer, fellowship, the unbelievable beauty of creation and PINTS. What more could a man ask for?
A special mention to
@MichaelPTKelly
,
@ChaiBradyIC
and
@RuadhanJ
: the best colleagues a man could have asked for, and even better friends. I owe each of them much, not in the least for the help and guidance, both personal and professional, they offered me during my time there.
The Church in Ireland is small and contracting, but if you spend any amount of time engaging with it you'll quickly find that saints live and move among us still.
The birth of saints is the Church's primary work and business is booming.
A group of women have arrived in Ireland to show their appreciation to Irish nuns who taught them in Cameroon in the 1980s. The former students - who now have careers in medicine, nursing and engineering - say the nuns empowered them | More:
President Biden just after arriving at Knock shrine. Whatever else about it, it's striking to see arguably the most powerful man in the world in what is such an intimate place for so many in Ireland.
A most welcome arrival in the post this morning, an invitation to a wedding at Tyniec Benedictine Abbey outside Kraków. One of the beautiful pillars silently upholding the world.