Catholic schools want key preparations for sacraments such as confirmation and communion to take place outside the classroom.

The CSO yesterday published data on the 21,053 marriages held last year.

Eoin English Promises to open dialogue with the young — ‘future of the Church’

Father Fintan Gavin, 53, will become the fourth bishop to be appointed by the Vatican to join the Diocese of Cork and Ross, since it was formed in 1958.

His Holiness Pope Francis has appointed Fr Fintan Gavin, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Dublin, as the new Bishop of Cork and Ross.

The cost of funding public tribunals and commissions of inquiry into wrongdoing by state agencies and individuals will reach close to €500m by the end of this year.

The talks also include the adjoining lands as both organisations work to develop significant community projects.

A Dublin parish priest has voluntarily stood aside from his position following concerns which were brought to the diocese and reported to the gardaí.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, says he was not consulted about a decision to exclude former president of Ireland Mary McAleese from a Catholic women’s conference in the Vatican.

A detective acquitted of forging a letter from the Director for Public Prosecutions in relation to the investigation of an allegation of sexual abuse against a priest has failed to get High Court orders halting a disciplinary inquiry.

Pope Francis will "do everything he can" to come to Ireland next year, a senior Vatican official has said.

When Pope John Paul II elevated Desmond Connell to the archdiocese of Dublin in January 1988, he was far from being the first choice.

The Archbishop of Dublin has said it is “too early to know” if the Pope will attend the World Meeting of Families which has been confirmed for Dublin from August 22 to 26, 2018.

IT seems that the attitude of the Catholic Church in Ireland has undergone little, if any, change judging by the remarks made by a bishop at the funeral of a fellow bishop who was scathingly criticised by the 2009 Murphy inquiry into how the archdiocese of Dublin handled allegations of child abuse by priests.

President Michael D Higgins has said that Ireland has yet to achieve gender equality, and called on the international community to do more to end inequality and violence against women.

A free walking tour app of the key sites of the 1916 Easter Rising is set to be launched next April.

The former assistant national director of child and family services in the HSE said he was “not surprised” when approximately 700 unidentified files relating to children, about whom concerns had been raised, were recently unearthed.

One of the country’s main groups for helping victims of sexual abuse has called the lack of services available “a national scandal” as it faces the prospect of not being able to accept new clients for up to four months amid mounting waiting lists for services.

A struck-off solicitor described as a "devout Christian" has been jailed for three years for stealing €2.8m from former client accounts to fund investment properties and buy on the stock market.

The number of priests formally accused of sexually abusing children in the country’s biggest Catholic diocese over the past 40 years has topped 100, according to the latest figures.

I am writing in reply to Andrew Fagan (March 18), one of the 69 salaried lay officials of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, who seeks to reprimand and silence me for writing about the departure of Ian Elliott from the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC).

In your Letters to the Editor section (March 14) a Fr. Thomas O’Flynn, in writing about the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, claimed “there are other uninvestigated clerical scandals with adolescents that occurred at other locations around the country.”

World falls heavy on Barroso’s shoulders

IN TERMS of symbolism, Jorge Mario Bergoglio hasn’t put a foot wrong since becoming the first Jesuit and the first South American to be elected Pope and taking the name Francis.

The Archdiocese of Dublin will today reveal details of new guidelines covering a child's First Communion and First Confession.

In her recent article, Martin needs to offer hope and solutions (Jul 27), Patricia Casey — commenting on his recent MacGill Summer School address — criticises the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, claiming he “seems to find it very hard to talk about the Catholic Church in an upbeat way”.

Ireland’s first married deacons were ordained last night by the Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

Fresh allegations of child sexual abuse have been made against four priests of the Archdiocese of Dublin in the past 12 months.

The Catholic Church’s rules on celibacy are to be relaxed next month, when Ireland’s first group of married deacons are ordained.

More than €10m in compensation has been paid out to victims of paedophile priests in the Dublin area, it was revealed today.

Gardaí have expressed confidence that all problems identified in a critical report of the force’s handling of investigations into sexual offences against children are being addressed.

Mary Raftery’s work exposed many abusers who had been protected by the Church, writes Andrew Madden

The Government today faced calls for an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse involving the former Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid.

THE Vatican has come under attack from priests in the Diocese of Limerick over the way it is going about finding a successor for Bishop Donal Murray who resigned in December 2009.

THE Vatican is planning “something dramatic” for the Irish Church in the coming months which could see the number of dioceses significantly reduced and most of our current bishops replaced, it has been claimed.

SUSPECTED paedophile priests identified in the Murphy Commission’s report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin may face charges.

CLEAR differences exist between the Office of the Minister for Children and the HSE over the powers of the health authorities to investigate allegations of child abuse outside the family, according to the commission.

A NOTICE of a Mass to be celebrated in memory of Osama bin Laden this week in a Dublin Catholic church has been described as a hoax.

Fifty more people have made clerical sex abuse allegations against priests in the Dublin Archdiocese, since the publication of the Murphy report in 2009.

The Archdiocese of Dublin will today launch its Child Safeguarding and Protection Policy and Procedures.

A NEW child protection tsar has been appointed by the Limerick diocese to oversee child protection throughout the diocese.

“A VERY disturbed man who is always going to be dangerous. He could not be let near schools, children, confession without a grille...”

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Diarmuid Martin unequivocally apologised for the Church’s failure to prevent child abuse in the wake of the publication of chapter 19 of the Murphy report.