The theme of the visit is “Make me a channel of your peace”, which reflects the urgent need in the region to pursue peaceful coexistence.
Fr Daniel O’Leary, who died on 21st January, said he wanted to point out that one of the fall-outs of a mandatory celibate life is "the violence it does to a priest’s humanity, and the wounds that it leaves on his ministry”.
“If we begin to think that we have all the answers about faith, then we have become trapped in our own ways of thinking,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told young people who attended the Panama in Dublin WYD event.
“I am leaving for the World Youth Day in Panama. I ask you to pray for this very beautiful and important event on the path of the Church” – Pope Francis on Twitter as he departed for Panama.
Bishop Paul McAleenan paid tribute to people from across Europe who have contributed to the Church and society in the UK and who are what he called “an integral and valued part of our parishes, schools and communities”.
“Despite the formal abolition of the slave trade, the exploitation of some human beings by others has not ended and now takes place in terrible new forms on a significantly large scale.”
The booklet features prayers compiled by Peter Murphy that are suitable for personal prayer in parishes, in the home, in hospital or in healthcare facilities.
Children will be aware of tensions between parents but "it’s better not to have rancorous and fractious conflict in front of them because they’ll be upset by it".
“We just work together and try to provide a Christian witness in a world which is becoming increasingly secular and anti-Church. So I think we feel we have a common purpose.” – Rev Leslie Robinson
“Over the years I have come to believe that faith cannot be acquired effortlessly: just as any other discipline, it requires commitment, perseverance and sacrifice.”
Group of 30 young people from Dublin will arrive in Panama this Friday (18 January) and will stay with families in a host parish, where they will take part in a social justice programme with local parishioners.
Marie Collins tells We Are Church gathering, “If there is no consistent agreement across the Church as to what is sexual abuse of a minor, then how can we have any hope of consistent handling of the issue?”
Episcopal vacancies are an opportunity for the Church in Ireland to lay new foundations, says We Are Church Ireland.
The story of Sr Oliva Maria demonstrates “the far-flung places to which Irish missionaries went and the diverse nature of their work and supports that they provided for the poor and marginalised”.
“Are you seriously telling me that all these Sisters were all evil psychopaths? That is not my experience.”
Politicians who supported the campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment are “clearly out of communion” with the Church warns Bishop Kevin Doran.
In his traditional Christmas day Urbi et Orbi message, the Pontiff prayed that Syrians might “find fraternity after long years of war” and that Yemen’s recent truce would bring relief to its people and children “exhausted by war and famine”.
So many persons stop every Christmas before the mystery of God made man, represented in the crib with statuettes, which in many cases are authentic masterpieces of art to pray, to reflect and to discover the love of God who becomes a child for us – Archbishop Rino Fisichella.
“Let it be clear that before these abominations the Church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whosoever has committed such crimes.”
“Very many are under great strain because accommodation and housing is scarce or beyond their reach. A new political impetus is required along with real determination to make inroads into this critical need in so many people’s lives” – Bishop William Crean, Cloyne.
"For those who are involved in the service and transmission of faith..."
In the 52nd World Day of Peace message, Pope Francis admonishes those whose political addresses blame every evil on migrants as “unacceptable”.
Capital punishment is “contrary to the Gospel as it implies suppressing a life that is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator, and of which only God is the true judge and guarantor”.
"Advent also prepares us for the second coming of Christ at the end of time. As Christians, we must always be prepared for the coming of the Lord." – Archbishop Eamon Martin.
There is “little sense of mission within the Catholic Church in Ireland” and no sense of what that mission should be, Bishop Dermot Farrell tells conference in Kilkenny.
“We state definitively that those who do not respect freedom of thought, conscience and religion must be held to account” – Chair of the Council for Justice and Peace of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Alan McGuckian.
“You are the musical animators of the whole congregation. Don’t take its place, depriving the people of God of the chance to sing with you.”
It is Pope Francis’s hope that the book will create inter-generational dialogue and he asks young and old to join forces for the betterment of the world.
Rialto Bridge and waters of the Grand Canal in Venice bathed in crimson to draw attention to the discrimination that Christians like Asia Bibi suffer in many parts of the world.
