He felt an envy for religious people that he’s sometimes felt before. This time, John Harris writes, it came from “a year of lockdown, the sudden fear of serious illness and death, and the sense of all of it being wholly random and senseless. …
Father P.J. Hughes is the parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Mullahoran, a township in rural County Cavan, Ireland. He recently earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first Irish priest for centuries to find himself on the wrong side of the
As Mass restrictions continue across the globe amid the coronavirus pandemic, many parts of the world still have churches shuttered. With parishes locked in the United Kingdom, a lone priest in Ireland set out to celebrate Easter Sunday Mass on an ancient rock upon a
People around the world continue to draw strength from the way that St. John Paul II faced his final days, his former personal secretary said on the 16th anniversary of the Polish pope’s death. Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz noted that this year’s anniversary fell on Good
A Polish Catholic parish in London, England, said Saturday that it believed that police “grossly exceeded their powers” when they halted a Good Friday service and ordered parishioners to go home. Police officers interrupted the Good Friday liturgy at Christ the King Church in Balham,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cancelled plans for a strict lockdown over Easter, just a day after the measures were announced. Calling the plan a “mistake”, Mrs Merkel said she took “ultimate responsibility” for the U-turn. The proposed lockdown was agreed with regional leaders in
There is a lot of uncertainty among Catholics about the safety, efficacy, and morality of receiving the COVID-19 vaccines that are currently available in the United States. Here are some of the best resources we have found to help answer all of your questions. Dr.
A Catholic priest will proceed with a challenge to the Scottish government’s ban on public worship on Thursday despite an announcement that restrictions will be lifted earlier than previously expected. Canon Tom White will press ahead with the hearing at Scotland’s supreme civil court on March
It was almost a year ago when the world came to a grinding halt. Public Masses were canceled, schools moved to remote learning, weddings and funerals were put on hold, and just about everything in society was turned on its head. The remnants of March
Offering general absolution to the faithful without having them personally confess their sins first may still be done in places seeing serious or increasing levels of coronavirus infections, a Vatican official said. While “individual confession remains the ordinary way of celebrating this sacrament,” serious situations
