Dreams Come True volunteers from UCD recently hosted a Star Party for over 40 Junior and senior infants and 1st class pupils of St Joseph’s Primary School, Dun Laoghaire
    Fr Sweeney, Fr McKeever, Fr Devenney, Cardinal Seán Brady and Fr Coyle with Principal Peter Gildea and mini versions of the priests from class P6 Mt St Catherine's Primary School, Armagh. Photo: Liam McArdle
    Participants at the Young Social Innovators Speak Out Dublin City Region. Sr Stanislaus Kennedy Chairperson YSI & Caroline Casey CEO Kanchi with students from St Leo's College, Carlow
    Students from St Mary's Secondary School, Baldoyle, Dublin gave their support to Fair Trade Fortnight from Feb 22-Mar 7
    A religious statue sits amid rubble left by an earthquake in La Pezca, Chile which left more than 700 people dead. Photo: CNS
    Bishop Noel Treanor, Fr Magorrian CC and Fr McCaughan PP celebrated the confirmation ceremony for students in St Patrick's Church, Lisburn, Co. Antrim
    Catholic Guides of Ireland marking their National Thinking Day when guide movements all over the world remember their guiding friends. Photo: Paul McGovern
    Primary Pupils of the vibrant Christ the Redeemer Parish in Lagmore, Belfast
    Pat Brady of Tynan, Co Armagh with family members celebrating his receipt of a Bene Merenti Medal in recognition of his services as Sacristan at St Joseph's Church, Tynan
    Bishop Noel Treanor of Down and Connor with pupils and staff of St Teresa's Primary in Belfast during the opening of the school's new Speech and Language Centre

    Top Stories

    Bishop Drennan announces 'Reparation’ Service

    Garry O’Sulllvan
    Editor

    The Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan has written to his priests asking them to invite representatives of each parish to a service of Reparation in the Cathedral on Palm Sunday, March 28th, at 3.00pm.

    In the letter Bishop Drennan told the priests – “We’ll be asking God’s forgiveness for crimes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse that have brought shame on all of us. In our prayer we’ll remember all who are survivors of abuse, all in need of healing, in need of the peace that only God can give.”

    Bishop Drennan goes on to ask that each parish would place a sprig of palm on the altar at the service “to express the penitential mood of the day”.  “It would be ideal” he...

    Sex abuse scandal in Germany growing

    The full scale of the clerical abuse scandal in Germany continues to unfold.

    Since allegations against members of the Jesuit Order began to surface at the renowned private Catholic Canisius Kolleg in Berlin in January, the number of former Jesuit students coming forward to allege clerical abuse has grown to 120. There have also been allegations of rape among other accusations levelled against 12 named priests. Of this number, three have admitted abusing students in their care during the 1970s and '80s.

    The number of schools involved has also increased as the investigation widens, to include Jesuit institutions in Hamburg, St Blasien in southern Germany and Hildesheim near Hanover.

    The lawyer appointed to act on behalf of the Jesuit Order, Ursula Raue said the case...
    The View: Is the response to the Pope's letter already predictable? - John Waters

    No matter what gesture the Church or the Pope come to make in an attempt to address recent revelations about clerical abuse in the Irish Church, it is unlikely to satisfy a society in which many forces are at play which the Church does not appear to understand.

    Often, these days, one is moved to think that the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, in Ireland or the Vatican, have a minimal understanding of the culture into which they must speak. Last week, when the Irish bishops went to Rome to discuss with the Pope and his officials the continuing crisis in the Irish Church, it was as if nobody involved had been able to predict what was obvious and inevitable.

    ...

    Creeping denial

    Is there a creeping denial coming into play now, a view that it would be an injustice for some bishops to resign? It appears that the Pope may not accept the two remaining bishops' resignations that are on his desk, namely those of Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Bishop Ray Field. Archbishop Martin's office is said to not know what the outcome will be which is quite an extraordinary admission.

    Meanwhile Bishop Drennan has refused to step down claiming that it would be an injustice. Bishop Noel Treanor and Baroness Nuala O'Loan last weekend backed this stance, in the case of Mrs O'Loan saying that there was no 'collective responsibility' under the archbishop of Dublin as he was in charge. However, Bishop Jim Moriarty has signalled that his resignation will be accepted.

    So what is...

    Comment

    Farcical attempt at Lenten observance

    This year, my attempt at Lenten discipline was a little more farcical than usual. I gave up tea and coffee, because I felt I was addicted to drinking cup after cup. For the first few days, I whinged on an hourly basis, subjecting my nearest and dearest to my acute sense of martyrdom.

    Then things took a somewhat comical turn. I was sitting with a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream one evening, something I would normally never do. My son, who does a nice line in teasing,...

    The Editors Comments

    Nothing compares to Sinead O'Connor

    Sinead O'Connor said last week that she was astonished by the Bishop of Ferns' statement on his diocesan finances. Fair enough I thought; a lot of people seem to have been upset at the idea of being possibly asked to contribute to the cost of the damage caused by abusing priests. It's not a simple issue, but it is certainly one that got a lot of people animated. Let's have the debate.

    Then Sinead quickly lost my sympathetic reading of her letter when she said that Bishop Brennan's dictating - he wasn't dictating but raising a difficult subject for discussion - was akin to the Inquisition in telling people how to behave. The bishop tries to have a debate on a controversial issue and suddenly he's slapped with the Inquisition tag. The Church, she added had throttled billions ''from our grandparents'' whom it abused in every way imaginable.

    Of course she doesn't back this up with any evidence so let's take the twin churches in Wexford by way of example of that generation and their involvement with the Church.

    According to the Wexford parish website it says about the funding of the twin churches in Wexford town from the 1850s onwards: ''Father Roche was also...