One of the things that constantly changes in our lives is how we treat death and the rituals around that inevitability.

Students at Catholic schools in Northern Ireland should be encouraged to join the PSNI to help balance community representation in the force, the leader of the DUP has said.

I refer to the criticism levelled at The Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Alphonsus Cullinan concerning the practice of yoga in Catholic schools. A Roman Catholic bishop is a successor of the apostles; he is indeed shepherd of his flock, and carries a staff as a visible symbol of this role. As bishop, he has a sacred duty of pastoral care.

In New Orleans, there is a blank slab of concrete where a statue of American civil war general Robert E Lee stood for 133 years.

By providing a benign shelter for conflicting identities, the European Union helped end the Troubles in the North. To forget this is to risk a return to the past. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ is a warning from history that should not be forgotten, says Roisin McAuley.

Killala diocese is typical of many Catholic dioceses in Ireland.

Sometimes great change, maybe the greatest of change, comes in a quiet, almost unspoken way — certainly without the triumphalism that hinders bridge building.

Ahead of a two-part RTÉ series on Daniel O’Connell, who was known as The Liberator after emancipation in 1829, historian Ryle Dwyer looks at the life of our forgotten ‘king’.

Today is the Feast of the Assumption all over the Christian world, a feast day first instituted by Emperor Maurice in 600 AD and bigged up by Pope Nicholas 1 around 850 AD to rival Christmas and Easter.

We take a trip down memory lane and check out what happened on this day in years gone by by looking back at some Irish Examiner front pages and highlighting other events which went down in history across the world.

Ryle Dwyer examines the vital part played by one Cork man in highlighting, for the broadest international audience, the blatant contradictions of Britain’s behaviour during the two conflicts.

This week, two priests took up opposing positions on what is and is not appropriate for a Catholic funeral Mass.

We take a trip down memory lane and check out what happened on this day in years gone by.

Disadvantaged people — our people, whether they are unionists or nationalists — must not be further disadvantaged, writes Victoria White

University College Cork researchers have unearthed some 200 volumes of centuries-old newsletters that shine a light on 16th and 17th-century life in Europe.

After his resignation in 2013, Pope Benedict chose to live in the Vatican in silence. But his presence, his influence, and a growing campaign is causing problems for Pope Francis and threatens to undermine his papacy, writes TP O’Mahony.

Some experts suggest overindulgence leads Catholics to early graves, and some have suggested the Famine led to genetic changes, writes Victoria White

Social injustice is injustice no matter from which side of a political or religious divide your opinions are formed.

The Vatican has issued a document rejecting the idea that people can choose or change their genders.

Ireland’s welcome, but incomplete march towards a modern, liberal and kinder democracy continued on Friday when 82.07% of the electorate, one of the most decisive endorsements since the island voted on the Belfast Agreement 21 years ago, backed Government plans for a shorter period of separation between estranged partners before they can apply for a divorce.

The problem with Brexit is that it seems to restate the choice: are you Irish or are you British? says Victoria White

Our contemporary culture war around secularism and the place of religion — primarily Catholicism in Ireland’s case — in public life can be heated, especially around health or education issues.

The Birth of Modernism in Irish Art 1920-1960 is the title of an exhibition running at the State Apartment Galleries in Dublin Castle until August 18.

Latest: The structure of Notre Dame has been saved after a huge fire destroyed parts of the famous cathedral, according to a fire chief in Paris.

Abbey Island can be reached in just a few steps across the beach at Derrynane, Co Kerry.

Retired pope Benedict XVI has published an analysis on the Catholic Church's clergy sex abuse scandal, blaming it on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and church laws that protected priests.

Pope Francis has said women have "legitimate claims" to seek more justice and equality in the Catholic Church, but stopped short of endorsing more sweeping calls to recognise the "urgency of an inevitable change" to give them leadership roles.

Don Cahalane stated in his letter (March 26) concerning the modernising of the Catholic Church that “the Church at its most basic is a community of believers”!

A book of condolence has opened in the State-owned Killarney House for the last member of the McShain family, who donated the house and grounds to the people of Ireland.

Philip Pullella Pope Francis, ending a landmark conference on sexual abuse of children by clergy, has called for an “all-out battle” against a crime he said should be “erased from the face of the Earth”.

Pope Francis set the right tone in previewing the Vatican’s summit on clerical sexual abuse when he told the Church’s hierarchy that what is expected of them is not only condemnation of the crimes against children and teenagers but also tangible action to ensure that the cover-up culture is closed down and that justice is done.

Apart from achieving independence, joining the European Union, and almost unlimited access to education, nothing has changed this society as dramatically as the Catholic Church’s spectacular loss of power.

Pope Francis has said fear of migration is "making us crazy" as he began a trip to Central America amid a standoff over President Donald Trump's promised wall at the US-Mexico border and a new caravan of migrants heading north.

Despite his reservations about the Catholic Church as an institution, RP O’Donnell still has strong faith this Christmas.

Archaeologist Enda Flaherty has been documenting abandoned schoolhouses, thus providing a snapshot of those forgotten places where many of our predecessors were taught, says Dan MacCarthy.

The deep divide between Catholics and Protestants makes the coming together to honour the dead on both sides fraught with problems.

Martin O’Neill says he understands what James McClean is going through, having himself experienced hostility from the crowd at Windsor Park when, as a young Catholic during the Troubles, he first broke into the Northern Ireland team in the early 70s.

Middle Ireland is, by any comparison, a very good place in which to live. Let’s not allow Casey and his followers to wreck it, writes Victoria White.

"I was spitting fire and angry at everybody in life."

On your letter column on August 28, Patrick Dalton wrote of us being collectively responsible for the society we live in – going on to say, “who said stop when families handed over their ‘fallen’ daughters to institutions? Who said stop when the State broke up struggling families and put their children into care? Who said stop when Irish priests, brothers and nuns abused these citizens?”

Pope Francis came and he went. In terms of the past sins visited on the Irish population by the Catholic Church, not a lot of difference was made.

It is a pity that Pope Francis' radical message is drowned out by repeating ad nauseam the mantra, “clerical sex abuse”, suggests Victoria White

The Pope has paid tribute to the dignity of the homeless as he kissed a baby at a day centre in Dublin.

Clerical abuse victims have called for a zero-tolerance approach to be taken against priests involved in the child abuse scandals.