IrishCentral religion - b5cc3275d518416eacb61d676e8d84d1

Bill O’Reilly and Maureen McPhilmy’s divorce gets messy - battle over child custody and religion (IrishCentral)

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:29:29 PDT

By: IrishCentral Staff Writers

That smoke you see billowing may be coming from the scorched earth custody battle unleashed by the nation’s biggest pundit, Bill O'Reilly. Apparently the atmosphere between O'Reilly and his ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy has become so toxic that even the Catholic Church has gotten involved.

Heads roll as the religion of “turn the other cheek,” meets the religion of “peace” (IrishCentral)

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 05:31:36 PST

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Religion is the least important aspect of Irish people’s lives, survey offers holistic view of life in Ireland (IrishCentral)

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:50:22 PST

By: MICHELLE K SMITH

A new survey found that the Irish rank religion and spirituality as the least important aspect of their lives. The Irish ranked education as the most important out of a suggested 119 categories.

Catholicism fast becoming the dominant US religion new poll shows -- As Protestant numbers decline, Catholics now come center stage (IrishCentral)

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 04:30:27 PDT

Catholicism is now the biggest faith group in the United StatesCatholics are now the single biggest faith group in America at 22 per cent, according to the latest Pew research pollThe news will come as a positive boost to the American bishops who have endured massive negative publicity on child abuse cases these past few yearsThe influx of Hispanics has certainly helped the Catholic numbers but the church seems in remarkable shape given its problemsThe emerging Catholic power is shown most clearly in the make-up of the Supreme Court where six of the nine justices share that faith READ MORE

Religion and politics go perfectly together, but is the church closing their doors to possible parishioners? (IrishCentral)

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 05:32:51 PDT

Archbishop John J Myers (AP Photo/Mel Evans)Tom Moran was “born into a devout Catholic family, the fifth of nine children,” as the Irish American columnist wrote in a column this past Sunday for the Star Ledger newspaper in New JerseyMoran, however, now declares himself “a spiritual refugee,” who has “fled a million miles from the church”He, of course, is not the only one READ MORE

Ireland losing its religion - among top ten atheist countries (IrishCentral)

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:59:54 PDT

By: LAURA BRYN SISSON

According to a poll by Gallup International, Ireland now ranks among the top ten atheist nations worldwide, in a huge shift from the last poll in 2005. In the six years between polls, according to the results, one in five Irish set aside religion.

Irish senator Eamonn Coughlan wants sports along with religion to be examined in Irish high schools (IrishCentral)

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 05:01:33 PDT

Irish Senator Eamonn Coughlan (FG) has said that Physical Education (PE) - traditionally the 'sport' element of Ireland's high school curriculum - should be upgraded to an examinable subjectThe call follows the upgrading of other traditionally less emphasized high school programmes, such as Religious Education, to the ranks of those subjects which can be taken in the Leaving Certificate, the finishing exam in the Irish high school systemCurrently, 'PE' is taught in an ad-hoc and highly unstructured manner, with typical 'sessions' consisting of indoor soccer, circuit exercises, or any other of a number of aerobic exercisesCoughlan, however, said that PE's upgrade to an examinable subject would see it vested with a much greater degree of traditional classroom-based content than has currently been the case READ MORE

Olympic winner Katie Taylor wrong to bring religion into sports (IrishCentral)

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 04:46:33 PDT

Katie TaylorOlympic winner Katie Taylor wrong to bring religion into sports - Saying God ensured she’d win her gold medal is just plain wrongRight after Katie Taylor’s victory she was interviewed on RTE, Ireland’s national television station She took her first few minutes of the interview to thank the Lord and Jesus Christ her Savior for her victory"I serve an amazing God and without Him I wouldn't be here without this gold medal around my neck," said Taylor, who wore a robe with the line, "The Lord is my shepherd and my shield""I would be nothing without God READ MORE

The end of liberalism in religion predicted by Ross Douthat in NY Times -- Says Catholicism will prevail because of sticking with the old ways (IrishCentral)

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:33:07 PDT

A parishioner prayingLiberal religions have collapsed despite the best efforts of liberal pastors and administrators to save them, says Ross Douthat in his New York Times column on SundayDouthat says it is perfectly understandable that conservatives in the Catholic Church demand adherence to the old laws when they see how devastated liberal religions are in the past decadeHis argument appears to be that the liberal way has not worked and that on balance, the conservative approach of Pope Benedict and John Paul before him has worked betterDouthat focused on the Episcopal Church, which has allowed gay pastors, gay marriage, and thrown itself open to many social movements READ MORE

GOP’s Rick Santorum knows nothing about America’s immigrant heritage (IrishCentral)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 06:15:16 PDT

Rick Santorum (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)Specifically, I recommend to the Republican presidential candidate a much heralded debut novel by Lyndsay Faye entitled The Gods of GothamThe book is set in the 1840s, just as the Famine Irish were pouring into New YorkNeedless to say, not everyone was pleased at this influx, and Faye includes snippets of the most vile anti-Irish, anti-Catholic writings of the day“The popish countries of Europe are disgorging upon our shores, from year to year, their ignorant, superstitious, and degraded inhabitants, not only by tens, but by hundreds of thousands, who already claim the highest privileges of native citizens, and even the country itself READ MORE

Archbishop Timothy Dolan's gay bashing letter to President Obama (IrishCentral)

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:20:25 PDT

Look at CanadaOn July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage with the enactment of the Civil Marriage ActBy 2011 the only major social change that has occurred is that gay people have almost total equality under Canadian lawThat's nice for them, isn't it?The erosion of traditional marriage, the marginalization of religion and the complete breakdown of the family, still so fretted over by some conservatives, hasn't happened READ MORE

In the footsteps of saints, scholars and sinners - A Celtic camino (IrishCentral)

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 05:25:21 PDT

Confessio Patricus, the written confessions of St Patrick, have a special resonance today, in this the age of damning reports from Raphoe to Cloyne on an infected church in an era of overwhelmingly disinterested, disconnected younger generations and demoralized older onesPatrick apparently was an unbecoming upstart figure to his clerical peers in the mid fifth century, and the Confessio was all about setting the record straight from his own perspective A fifth century tribunal response, if you like, where the once enslaved Briton shepherd boy of part Roman stock (some sources indicate Kilpatrick, near Glasgow was his birthplace) sets down in his own hand the circumstances that led to his mission to Ireland and how he went about answering the callIndeed Dáibhí Ó Croinín a superb lecturer who could entice 9am attendances on hazy Friday mornings in Galway, quipped that Patrick, must have been the only citizen of the Roman empire to have been made a slave and live to tell the tale READ MORE

Dublin Archbishop - Catholics are not passing religion on to the next generation (IrishCentral)

Wed, 18 May 2011 04:58:22 PDT

By: ANTOINETTE KELLY

The abuse crisis in the Irish church is not the only grave challenge facing it, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told the Catholic News Service this week.

Actor Martin Sheen says his Catholic religion saved him (IrishCentral)

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:38:39 PDT

By: PATRICK COOPER

Irelands Census 2011 and Catholicism - the demise of organized religion in Ireland (IrishCentral)

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:00:06 PDT

Read more: The Irish are fast losing their religion say experts On Sunday, 10th April the people of Ireland will fill in their census forms under wildly different circumstances than when they last did so in 2006 But aside from the inevitable stark figures surrounding employment and the people who’ve had to leave the country to get it, there is another question that will also speak volumes: the question on religionApart from the usual campaigns to get Jedi Knight or Pastafarianism officially on the books, or this year in particular augment the number of people who claim no religion, this year’s religion statistics will be a crucial chapter in an intriguing storyIn 1981, when priests were still more feared than the guards, the percentage of Roman Catholic people in Ireland was 93% READ MORE

Talking religion in 2011 (IrishCentral)

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 03:30:16 PST

The time for resolutions is upon us After recovering from our hangovers (or in my case, the severe and ill-timed case of food poisoning that afflicted my fiance and I and relegated us to our couch watching When Harry Met Sally and sipping sparkling water for New Year's Eve, which is actually a lovely way to spend the evening), we're all full of freshness and possibility and promiseMany resolutions, which seem so realistic with 365 sunrises at our disposal in which to accomplish them, fall by the way side before Martin Luther King day, mostly because they are exercises in perfection "I will never eat too much dessert again!" etc READ MORE

The uncertainty of prayer (IrishCentral)

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 01:45:19 PST

Over the past several weeks, I've been busy finishing graduate school and trying to hold my life together When you're so stressed that you can barely finish a coherent sentence, let alone your laundry, you find yourself saying many throw-away prayers"Oh dear God let me make this deadline""Please Lord let there be jobs open at the end of this READ MORE

Working across the aisle and pulpit - how religion can inform political participation? (IrishCentral)

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 03:00:15 PST

It's looking like we're all in for a fight here in the United States after the midterm elections If you're a Republican, the fight is to repeal everything Obama and the Democratic Congress achieved since 2008 If you're a Democrat, the fight is against the Republicans who see it as their job to stonewall any efforts to move the agenda forward in the next two years If you are on neither side, consider yourself lucky READ MORE

Has Catholic education failed us? (IrishCentral)

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:30:18 PDT

The latest religious news this week is that, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, non-religious Americans know more about religion in general than self-identified Christians Even when corrections were made for disparities in intelligence and education levels, the statistics still bear out (You can test your own knowledge, or just check out the questions, here I got all the answers correct, but only because I had read about some of the questions in various news reports READ MORE

Why Church has lost all moral authority (IrishCentral)

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:26:31 PST

Posted by Kelly Fincham at 5/30/2009 11:31 AM EDTIn 1971, a group of Irish women including the wonderful writers Nell McCafferty and June Levine went up to Belfast to buy condoms and bring them back to the shuttered RepublicBy trainIt was called the Contraceptive Train - for obvious reasons - and the women were running huge risks bringing in such contrabandCondoms were banned in Ireland you see READ MORE