Brandon Scott

Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic Education Partnership Alan Hynes has said that regardless of any apparent shift in tone from Minister for Education Norma Foley regarding the controversial content in the DCU course for SPHE teachers, with reports indicating that Minister Foley is “unhappy” with the content, which includes graphic descriptions of specific sexual acts, Catholic schools were advised not to make use of certain SPHE textbooks and this will remain the policy regardless of any decision the minister may or may not make in the future.

Independent Senator Ronan Mullen has described last week’s passing of the Hate Crime Bill in the Oireachtas as an example of “radical gender politics” entering the country’s Statute Law for the first time, saying that it “sets a bad precedent for the future” as the new broad definition of gender comes from “a very ideological place”.

The “collapse” of Christianity in Ireland is “leaving a dangerous vacuum that is not being left vacant but being filled with other forms of pagan spiritualty, religion and worship”, the Administrator of Wexford parish has warned.

In response to Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Dilexit Nos, three priests have welcomed the Pope’s re-exploration of the devotion and its “radical” message, with members of the Pioneer Association, an organisation that specifically devotes itself to the message of Sacred Heart, hailing its ability to help people overcome addiction and foster faith in a world where “belief has sunken”.

Speaking after the publication of the Child Law Project’s latest report, a report which concluded that the State child care system in the country is in “crisis”, Aontú leader Peadar Toibin said that he has “no doubt” about the recent judgment of the advisory body and that it’s high time Government started asking very “serious” questions about the ongoing deficits in the State child care system.

Locals in the Co. Louth town of Ardee are fearful that a recently installed grotto, which has become a site of “prayer” and “reflection”, will be subject to removal in the imminent future due to “a number of complaints” that have been lodged with Louth County Council revolving around “religious symbolism in a public space”.

Politicians have reported that the main issues emerging at the doors of houses across the country as they canvass their way around country lanes and sprawling estates primarily concern the “incredible” cost of living and the lack of housing, issues that are contributing to an “overwhelming sense that the Government has lost control of everything”.

Thomas McCarthy’s latest book, Questioning Ireland, is, like its predecessor, Poetry, Memory and the Party, magnificent. McCarthy, poet, novelist, essayist and critic is at once a Waterford man, a Munster man, an Irishman and a man of the world.

Speaking ahead of the ‘Come and See’ retreat this weekend in St Patrick’s College Maynooth, an event organised for men exploring a vocation and reflecting “more deeply on a call” to diocesan priesthood, the National Diocesan Vocations Coordinator for the Irish Episcopal Conference said that the rise in the number of enquiries discerning a vocation to diocesan priesthood gives priests involved in fostering vocations “great hope” and a sense “that the future for the Church in Ireland is good”.

The First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland confirmed last Tuesday that a contribution has been received from the Diocese of Down and Connor towards the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Redress Scheme.