3+ week, 1+ day ago (623+ words) Sister Stanislaus Kennedy was a "powerhouse of good" and "a woman who was hope for the hopeless", her funeral Mass heard on Friday. Sr Stan, as she was known, died on Monday aged 86 after a short illness. A member of the Religious Sisters of Charity and a long-time campaigner on homelessness and immigrants" rights, she founded Focus Point (now Focus Ireland), the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Young Social Innovators and an ecumenical centre for meditation, The Sanctuary, in inner city Dublin. Br Richard Hendrick, Capuchin Order provincial in Ireland, told mourners in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Donnybrook, Dublin, that Sr Stan"s founding of so many pioneering charities would "remain as testimony to the legacy of this powerhouse of good". [Obituary: Sr Stanislaus Kennedy had an impulse to help those in distressOpens in new window] She "swept into…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago (649+ words) Attempts in 2023 to alert authorities in the Presbyterian Church to failings in its child safeguarding policies were ignored, a leading expert in the area has said. Ian Elliott was speaking following Wednesday's announcement that Presbyterian Moderator Rev Dr Trevor Gribben is to resign over his failure to deal adequately with child protection issues. Mr Elliott, who played a key role in reforming child protection structures in the Catholic Church, said he had "previously offered advice to the [Presbyterian] Church, but this was refused. A Presbyterian himself, Mr Elliott said he was asked in 2023 to participate in an expert safeguarding panel for the Presbyterian Church. "I agreed and used that body as a way of voicing my concerns about what may be happening. Unfortunately, these questions were not answered and I resigned after a number of months, Mr Elliott said. He…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago (728+ words) The PSNI has been in discussions with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) after the latter raised concerns following the conviction of an individual in 2024 for child sexual offences, it is understood. The PCI has been called upon to provide more clarity around "serious failings" in safeguarding in the church. Northern Ireland communities minister Gordon Lyons, a member of the church, said he was shocked at the announcement that moderator Rev Trevor Gribben was to stand down, after stating that people had been harmed and others placed at risk because of the failings. Mr Gribben told a press conference in Belfast on Wednesday that there had been "serious and significant failings" in the central safeguarding functions of the church from the period 2009 to 2022. It emerged that failures included situations where the church failed to respond when people who had suffered…...

1+ day, 13+ hour ago (468+ words) The religious education syllabus in Northern Ireland is to be reformed in the wake of a UK supreme court judgment which found the exclusively Christian teaching and collective worship in schools was unlawful. Last week, the court upheld a 2022 ruling by the High Court in Belfast that religious education and Christian worship were not conveyed in an "objective, critical and pluralistic manner" and therefore breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). A child, known as JR87, and her father sought a judicial review after she took part in non-denominational Christian religious education and collective worship as part of the curriculum at a controlled primary school " a common form of state-funded school " in Belfast. Her parents "did not wish her to be taught that Christianity was an absolute truth" and wrote to the school in 2019 voicing concerns that their daughter's education…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago (543+ words) The acting leadership of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland said failings in the area of child protection were "inexcusable" and appealed to abuse survivors to come forward. "If you don't want to speak to PCI [Presbyterian Church in Ireland] then please get in touch with the police or Victim Support," it said. It follows the announcement last Wednesday by the church's moderator (leader) Rev Dr Trevor Gribben that he is to resign at the end of this month over failings in the church's child safeguarding practices. He was "inexpressibly grieved and ashamed by this" and said: "We will not sweep this under the carpet, we will open ourselves to external review and will co-operate fully." [Presbyterian Church ignored concerns over its child safeguarding policies, expert saysOpens in new window] An external audit within the church was "already under way, designed…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago (983+ words) Alice Quinza, a student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had just attended Sunday evening Mass at the Pro Cathedral in Dublin city centre. She felt the Mass carried "not the same energy'as in her country, where it would be "more exuberant'. Quinza said it was "very different to the way we worship back in Congo'. Others from Nigeria, Spain and the Philippines agreed: the Masses here are shorter, less methodical and often "too relaxed'. As the number of practising Irish Catholics decreases, a growing diversity among congregations attending Masses in the Republic is becoming ever more pronounced. It is similar with clergy in recent years, with more and more African and Asian priests leading liturgies in Catholic parishes across the island as a whole. Walter and Indira Kuizon, from the Philippines, have been in Ireland five years. Speaking…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago (526+ words) Dublin's Catholic Archdiocese, the biggest in the country, says its cash reserves will be exhausted by 2041 and that there will be 70 per cent fewer priests within 20 years. In the archdiocese's financial statements for 2024, it says that, based on current cost assumptions, existing reserves will be exhausted within 16 years. With 1.1 million Catholics, the archdiocese is served by 361 priests, a majority of whom are elderly. It projects the number of priests will reduce by 70 per cent within 20 years, with no ordination in 2024 and just two since 2020. The statements note how Mass attendance remains the main source of income in Dublin, but the "average age of regular Mass-goers continues to increase. The archdiocese said the younger generation were "not attending Mass with the same regularity or commitment as previous generations, ensuring sustainable income in the long-term presents a significant challenge. [I see mistakes…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago (234+ words) The Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Rev Trevor Gribben is to resign after an internal review found people within the Church have been harmed and placed at risk due to safeguarding failures. Speaking at a news conference in Belfast, Rev Gribben said: "Following an internal investigation and report, it has become clear that there have been serious and significant failings in the central safeguarding functions of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland from the period 2009 to 2022. "As a result of this, people have been placed at risk. We are aware of a number of people who have been harmed, and we believe there may well be others as yet unknown to us. "We apologise unreservedly for this. "The Church's first and greatest concern about this is for those people who have suffered harm, and those who have been put…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago (804+ words) Dublin's Pro Cathedral, St Mary's, has been officially designated as the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin by Pope Leo XIV. Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell said: "It is with great joy that I am pleased to announce that the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has consented to my request and has approved by decree that St Mary's be designated as the Cathedral Church of our Archdiocese." The Pro - short for Pro Tempore - prefix to the 200-year-old St Mary's indicated its temporary status pending long-standing plans to build a new Catholic cathedral in the capital. The church, on Marlborough Street, will henceforth be known as St Mary's Cathedral. As the penal laws persecuting Catholics were relaxed in the later 18th century, the Pro Cathedral site was bought in 1803. The completed building was dedicated 200 years ago on November 14th, 1825, feast day of diocesan…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago (474+ words) A bishop is being investigated over allegations of sexual abuse in the first case of its kind in Spain. The Vatican and the Spanish Catholic Church are investigating following a complaint filed earlier this year by a man who said he had been abused between the ages of 14 and 21 by Rafael Zornoza, who is currently the bishop of the cities of C'diz and Ceuta. The accusations date back to the mid-1990s, when Mr Zornoza, now 76, headed a seminary in Getafe, near Madrid. The complainant says the abuse began when he attended the seminary at weekends. "It was at night when he would come into the bedroom and I suffered the abuses," he wrote in an email he sent to the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to which El Pa's newspaper had access. "I write this letter only with…...