UK & Ireland

Following on from her superb Fifty Catholic Churches to See Before You Die, Elena Curti has provided a glorious sequel: Another Fifty Catholic Churches to See Before You Die. These English and Welsh churches are arranged in alphabetical order from Arundel Cathedral to Worth Abbey - a circular part-subterranean spaceship of a church with a powerful sense of the sacred. Written in limpid prose, Curt... Read More

The Bar Convent in York is opening a new audio trail on 25 May, celebrating the "trailblazers" of the convent. It focuses on inspirational women from the convent's history. Mary Ward has such international significance that her followers and supporters are building a case to have her officially recognised as a Saint by the Catholic Church. She believed that women were intellectually equal to men, ... Read More

The annual Catholics in Fundraising (CiF) Conference is set to take place on Wednesday 25 September 2024 at Stonyhurst College in Clitheroe, Lancashire. The event is designed specifically for Catholics working in diocesan offices, Catholic charities, and related senior leadership roles. The Catholics in Fundraising conference is for professionals working in Catholic fundraising roles. It aims to b... Read More

Bishop John Sherrington, Lead Bishop for Life Issues for the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, has released a statement on the Criminal Justice Bill expressing his deep concern about two tabled amendments that seek to liberalise abortion laws. They are set to be debated next week. Bishop Sherrington also voiced his support for two other tabled amendments, one of which would reduce the abor... Read More

As part of the legacy of developments marking 90 years since the restoration of the National Catholic Shrine of Our Lady, the Icon of the Mother of God of Walsingham has been restored to a high-profile place in the Chapel of Reconciliation. The Rector of the Shrine recently oversaw the move, mindful that the Icon had been in a high-profile position since the 1980s until shortly before the pandemi... Read More

CAFOD partners in Gaza say that since Israel began its fresh onslaught on Gaza, the situation for families there is "horrific". Updating on this morning's developments in Rafah, Elizabeth Funnell, Middle East representative for the aid agency CAFOD, said: "When I was speaking this morning to CAFOD's local partner in Gaza, they described the situation in Rafah as a 'cut and paste' kind of horror - ... Read More

It's Deaf Awareness Week; a time to focus on the Deaf Community and their presence in our parishes. The Deaf Community have a lot to offer the wider Catholic family. You may well have already seen on TV from Strictly Come Dancing and the Great British Bake Off, that Deaf people can dance and cook; in both cases brilliantly. Deaf people can be Eucharistic Ministers, they can be readers at Mass, par... Read More

The names of 18 monks, martyred at the beginning of the Reformation, were read out in a moving ceremony in the space that once was the chancel of Charterhouse Priory, in the City of London on Saturday afternoon. As each name was called a red rose was placed on a model of the Tyburn gibbet on the site of the altar. The annual Carthusian Martyrs Commemoration Choral Evensong began in the Charterhous... Read More

Grant applications for the Day for Life Fund opened on 1 May, giving organisations the opportunity to apply for funding for initiatives that promote the dignity of human life from conception to natural death. Bishop John Sherrington, Lead Bishop for Life Issues, said: "I am pleased to announce that this year's applications are now open. I encourage any organisation whose work strives to uphold the... Read More

The annual Carthusian Martyrs Commemoration Choral Evensong will take place on Saturday, 4 May 2024, at 4pm, in The Charterhouse, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6AN. The Preacher will be Archbishop Angaelos, Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London. Congregation members from St. Giles Cripplegate, Jewin Welsh Church, St. Joseph's, Bunhill Row, and Wesley's Chapel and Leysian Mission who form the EC... Read More

While Ireland was once a leader in road safely standards, in recent years there has been a worrying rise in the number of traffic accidents throughout the country. Ahead of the May public holiday this weekend, Killaloe Bishop Fintan Monahan said: "Up to this morning, across the island of Ireland, there have been 69 road fatalities in the Republic of Ireland, and 21 fatalities in the Northern Irela... Read More

The Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendia will be making a special visit to St Dominic's Priory and Rosary Shrine, Southampton Road, NW5, this Sunday, 5 May. Archbishop Buendia will be celebrating a special Mass at 12 noon, in thanksgiving for all those who have donated in any way towards the recent underfloor heating project in this beautiful church. There will be food and drink in th... Read More

On 25 April, the Archdiocese of Armagh and the Diocese of Dromore jointly hosted an inter-church dialogue event in the Drumcree Pastoral Centre, Portadown, on the theme: 'Journeying together as Christians in Ireland'. The event aimed to explore how the synodal processes currently underway in the Catholic Church, in Ireland and globally, can draw inspiration from the work of inter-chu... Read More

LGBT+ Catholics Westminster marked the start of its 25th anniversary month by laying 25 red roses during the annual commemoration of Soho's Admiral Duncan pub bombing which took place on 30 April 1999. The ceremony took place with a capacity crowd, filling St Anne's Gardens, Wardour Street, Soho. LGBT+ Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council Secretary, Martin Pendergast, who was also a co-founder o... Read More