Our interest in this year’s event is at odds with the pomp and piety of 1932, says Gerard Howlin

The Bishop of Kerry has indicated he will not be in a position to preside at all Confirmation ceremonies in the sprawling diocese this year due to a painful and debilitating back injury.

The Vatican has today expressed its "surprise and disappointment" at some responses to the Cloyne Report into clerical sex abuse.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny today launched an unprecedented attack on the Vatican, accusing Catholic hierarchy of putting the preservation of the church's reputation ahead of child rape victims.

THE head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has admitted that the Vatican’s attitude to the Church’s efforts to introduce child protection measures in Ireland was not helpful.

THE RECENT summit of the entire cohort of Irish bishops, the Pope and senior members of the Roman Curia seems to have been little more than a self-serving display of pious political theatre based on a disjointed script played before an increasingly sceptical and despairing Irish public.

FIRST Ferns, then Ryan and now the Murphy report all show the depth of corruption in the Catholic Church and the depth of deference to this corruption was shown in the Dáil by our Taoiseach when he fell over himself verbally while bending the knee to the Holy See.

Garry O’Sullivan argues that, to have a credible long-term future, the Irish Catholic Church needs radical surgery

Papal nuncio Archbishop Guiseppe Leanza has been asked to attend a meeting with the Foreign Affairs minister Micheál Martin at Iveagh house next week.

Some Orange Order members have formed a group to oppose any possible Papal visit to the North.

IN his letter headlined ‘The Godless delusion, flights of fancy and pointless questions’ (October 22), Oliver Broderick makes a dismissive reference to Hitler and the myth of his Catholicism.

Vodafone Derby hero Sir Percy has been installed as the 9-4 favourite to land the Irish equivalent at the Curragh in four weeks’ time.

LEADING bookmakers are fearing the ‘Fallon factor’ ahead of Saturday’s Vodafone Derby at Epsom.

ANTE-POST activity on the Vodafone Derby hotted up with Visindar cementing his claims with an emphatic victory in the Group Two Prix Greffulhe at Saint-Cloud while some bookmakers have removed Hala Bek and Sir Percy from their lists.

Pope Benedict XVI today sent a condolence message for the victims of a bombing in Turkey that destroyed a minibus, calling it a “horrible attack”.

REV GERARD GARRETT (Irish Examiner letters, May 18) is wrong when he says that “Crimen Sollicitationis (is) a Vatican document dealing principally with solicitation by priests in the course of confession.”

AN oath of secrecy. The unsealing of Papal documents. The meetings of the College of Cardinals after the death of a Pope are steeped in Vatican mystery.

MILLIONS of faithful around the world were praying for Pope John Paul II, as the 84-year-old head of the Catholic Church appeared to be approaching his final hours.

The Vatican has said it will put out the next health bulletin on Pope John Paul II's health later this morning.

Pope John Paul will leave hospital today, the Vatican announced.

A PAPAL emissary shut down an Austrian seminary yesterday amid a child porn investigation, saying that past procedures for selecting students for the programme were inadequate.

Pope John Paul today prayed for those “threatened in these hours by war” as the deadline approached for a US-led attack on Iraq.

EMBATTLED Cardinal Bernard Law met with Vatican officials again yesterday, a day after the Boston Archdiocese released more personnel records on sexually abusive priests and 58 clerics submitted a letter calling for Cardinal Law to resign.