A long-serving bishop has sparked a storm of controversy over his fitness for the job after revealing he used to think paedophilia was friendship gone too far.

THE Catholic Bishops have called into question the Government’s decision to cut the minimum wage when senior executives at semi-state companies are still earning six-figure salaries.

AN IMAGE of a drought-hit Dublin was yesterday used to highlight the impact of climate change on the world’s poor.

IRISH bishops and campaigners yesterday called on the Government to honour its overseas aid pledge by the year 2010.

THE funeral Mass of Archbishop Michael Courtney, the murdered papal nuncio to the central African state of Burundi, takes place in his home town of Nenagh, Co Tipperary, today.

THE Pope’s representative in Burundi, an Irishman, was shot dead in an ambush yesterday.

THE great personages of the world hold people’s lives in their hands.

THE Government must significantly increase its contribution to programmes for development aid in third world countries, the chairman of the Catholic aid agency Trocaire said yesterday.

AS leaders around the world condemn the escalating war of “shock and awe” in Iraq, it defies credulity that Tánaiste Mary Harney should seek to deny Ireland’s entitlement to question the legality and motives of the United States and Britain in declaring hostilities.

SOLDIERS added razor wire to Shannon Airport’s perimeter fences last night as the army and gardaí braced for trouble at today’s anti-war protest.

PEACE campaigners are planning a series of vigils and demonstrations to coincide with attacks on Iraq if war goes ahead.

WITH the UN Security Council and the NATO alliance still riven