OTELIER Francis Brennan is a natural storyteller.

When adherents of a faith insist on privileged status for them and them alone, like the Pope in 1870 and some followers of Islam today, it is more than problematic, writes TP O’Mahony

Desmond Fisher, a respected commentator on religious matters and a journalist who worked in both the print and broadcast sectors, has died aged 94.

Some 20 years after predictions were made of a ‘Catholic restoration’, the Church finds itself lost in modern Ireland, writes TP O’Mahony

Pope Francis has beatified Pope Paul VI and declared that God is not afraid of new things as he concluded a remarkable meeting of bishops on family issues.

Pope Francis has beatified Pope Paul VI and declared that God is not afraid of new things as he concluded a remarkable meeting of bishops debating family issues.

The Archbishop of Dublin has described the newly canonised popes John XXIII and John Paul II as men “who in their day to day ordinary lives try heroically to live the Christian life”.

Catholicism has two new saints — Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II — and, almost uniquely, a great number of people will remember their pontificates.

Relics of the two popes to be canonised tomorrow are to be installed during the St Peter’s ceremony in Tralee’s Dominican priory.

Pope Francis, in his Easter address before a huge crowd, denounced the “immense wastefulness” in the world while many go hungry and called for an end to conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Africa.

John Cornwell

The sick, elderly and bereaved in the diocese of Cork are suffering as there are not enough priests to cater for their spiritual needs.

Pope Francis is proving to be one of the great reformers of the Catholic Church and may even prove more radical than Pope John XXIII, according to Redemptorist priest, Fr Tony Flannery.

ITALY:

JUST about all the people of the United States who were old enough, remember where they were when they heard that John F. Kennedy was shot.

Pope Francis today effectively demoted a highly conservative Italian cardinal who led the Vatican’s department on clergy.

A recent speech by Pope Francis held clear echoes of a centuries-old tradition stressing the need for radical, progressive action, and insights on matters of social justice, writes TP O’Mahony

Pope John Paul II has cleared the final obstacle before being made a saint.

Dancer and musician Michael Flatley, author Colm Tóibín, and tenor Michael Londra have been confirmed as part of Irish celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s visit.

The TV and radio stations in Barcelona this morning focused on the bizarre coincidence that Barca win matches 4-0 whenever there’s a papal enclave.

Roger Mahony, a cardinal-archbishop, was relieved of public duties for mishandling child sex abuse cases, writes Paul Begala, so why was he allowed to vote for a new pope?

According to an ancient Irish saint and Paddy Power, Bono and Father Dougal McGuire from 'Father Ted' have outside chances of presiding over the end of the world.

As strong as the Catholic Church may have seemed, one of the reasons for the Pope’s 1979 visit was worry over its decline, writes Diarmaid Ferriter

Fifty years on from Vatican II, Catholics are still split on what it actually achieved. Desmond Fisher wonders what next for a Church in crisis

It is 50 years since Vatican II, a surprise attempt to radically overhaul the Catholic Church. But its potential has been squandered, writes TP O’Mahony

The Pope has knighted Northern Ireland peace process founder John Hume.

“AN adult faith does not follow the waves of fashion and the latest novelties,” Joseph Ratzinger told his fellow cardinals, just hours before they elected him pope.

Pope Benedict XVI began using a wheeled platform today to navigate the long aisle of St Peter’s Basilica, adopting the device employed by his ailing predecessor to reduce fatigue.

NORMALLY anyone using the National Archives is looking for specific information, but when the State Papers are released to journalists each year, it is a different matter. Most do not know what they are looking for; they just plough through the files looking for anything of likely interest.

READING the analysis column by the editor of the Irish Catholic Michael Kelly (Irish Examiner, August 14), I feel there are two fundamental errors in his thinking.

IN calling for a Vatican Council III, my old sparring partner TP O’Mahony (‘Vatican must change’, January 2) shows that more than 40 years later he still hankers for the 1960s when the speculations of German theologians at Vatican II press briefings prompted Irish reporters to be commentators playing the speculation game.

THE Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, had the audacity to assume that role in government while refusing to publish the report into child abuse in the Cloyne diocese which he had in his possession for several months.

ONE of this week’s news spectaculars was Ian Paisley launching Dana Rosemary Scallon’s autobiography, All Kinds of Everything. Anywhere else, that would have been just another photo-op but in Northern Ireland it was an event of real significance.

GOLDEN folk memories came flooding back yesterday as the National Museum of Ireland Country Life began to celebrate a generation that danced its way into history.

HOW utterly naive is TP O’Mahony in joining writers (some of them vehemently anti-Catholic) in attacking Pope Pius XII for not condemning the Nazis for their oppression of the Jewish people (Irish Examiner, September 12).

A British academic has won a prestigious international prize worth €648,000, it was announced in Rome tonight.

I COULD not help crying when I read the letter from George Longhurst (Irish Examiner, May 18) who bravely faced up to his American bishop in the pursuit of justice for a 10-year-old victim of clerical abuse.

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.”

CONTRARY to Patrick Geaney’s letter (Irish Examiner, April 27), neither the document Crimen Sollicitationis of 1962 nor Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter of May 2001 give any permit to Catholic bishops to conceal criminal acts of child abuse from the civil authorities.

THE new Pope who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.

Rachel Zoll, Vatican City

Two American cardinals with extensive Vatican experience insisted new Pope Benedict XVI was not the cold disciplinarian many believed him to be.

POPE Benedict XVI’s leadership will be “crucial” amid the complexities of the modern world, says President Mary McAleese.