Welcome, Fáilte - Diocese of Cloyne

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Welcome

Fáilte, Welcome

to the website for the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne, Ireland

Bishop William Crean

09 March 2026

Evangelium is hosting a one-day Catholic apologetics conference for young adults (18–40)

Saturday 21st March 2026 (10am–6:30pm) at the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs, Cork

The day will include talks and a panel Q&A on topics such as the Resurrection, St Augustine, evangelising youth and the beauty of the Catholic faith

Tickets are €15 (incl. refreshments). Tickets can be found on Eventbrite or www.evangelium.ie

Evangelium Conference 2026 - Cork

03 March 2026

Carrigtwohill Parish Pilgrimage to Fatima 7th - 14th September 2026

Spiritual Director: Fr. Patrick Winkle

Direct return flights from Cork to Faro, with Bus to and from Fatima included
Full Board - breakfast, lunch and dinner each day
7 nights Hotel Steyler
Limited number of places
€1045 (single supplement extra) - limited single rooms, insurance is also extra
20kg baggage included with Aer Lingus flight.
Guided tours and full spiritual programme

Please make enquires to Fr. Patrick Winkle 021-4882439 or Joe Walsh Tours 021-2427190 or 01-2410800
Or book direct online with Joe Walsh Tours

2026 CARRIGTWOHILL PATRICK WINKLE 07 SEP CORK FARO Fatima Pilgrimage 2026

02 March 2026

Walking in the Bible for Lent - Carrigtwohill Parish

Gentle reflections with questions welcome
8pm – 9.15pm

As a Parish we wish to explore the Bible during Lent, looking at the readings for the Easter Vigil as a way of guiding the exploration. Interested in walking through the Bible with others: Bible for curious and faithful. Discovery the wonder of the Scripture. Tues 3rd March, Tues 10th March, Wednesday 18th March and Tuesday 24th March

All are Welcome

Venue - Parish Sacristy

TAIZE PRAYER
Friday evenings at 7pm in St. Mary's Church, Carrigtwohill

Walking in the Bible for Lent - Carrigtwohill Parish

16 February 2026

Baptised and Sent - Lenten programme in Macroom

This Lent, parishes, schools and groups across Ireland are invited to journey together through a set of reflective resources inspired by Baptised and Sent which is the preparatory document for the 2025 National Pre-Synodal Assembly in Kilkenny

Grounded in the conviction that baptism is the foundation of our identity, dignity and mission, these resources help us return to the heart of Christian life: being reborn in Christ and sent out by the Spirit in service of the Gospel

You are warmly invited to join with us each Monday evening during lent in St. Colman’s Church Parish Centre, Macroom from 7pm to 8pm

Each weeks’ Lectio Divina, offers us an opportunity to reflect on the upcoming Sunday Gospel, which is prayerfully linked to key insights from Baptised and Sent.

Facilitated by Bill Kelly

St Colman's Macroom

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1 Mar 2026 - “It is good for us to be here”

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March 2026
February 2026
October 2025
- Bishop Crean meets Pope Leo
September 2025
- "Behold I'm doing a new thing" says the Lord (Isaiah 43)
February 2025
- Recent picture of St. Colman's Cathedral, Cobh. Co. Cork
October 2024
- Light a Candle at St. Colman's Cathedral

Coram Fratribus

3 Sunday of Lent A

Exodus 17.3-7: You must strike the rock and water will flow.
Romans 5.1-8: The love of God has been poured into our hearts.
John 4.5-42: The water I shall give will turn into a spring inside him.
Human beings cannot live without water. Read More

Coram Fratribus

Woundedness

The snippets below are from a conversation with Fran Otero on the occasion of the launch of Healing Wounds in Spanish. You can find the whole interview on the site of Ecclesia, here, or in PDF, here.
Should you wish to follow Read More

Coram Fratribus

3 Sunday of Lent A Exodus 17.3-7: You must strike the rock and water will flow.
Romans 5.1-8: The love of God has been poured into our hearts.
John 4.5-42: The water I shall give will turn into a spring inside him.
Human beings cannot live without water. We are fearfully conscious of that now, as climate change alters patterns of precipitation, making large areas of the world unsuitable as places for agriculture, even for human dwelling. Water shortage is an important cause of migration. Some strategists think that, in the future, major world conflicts will arise over access to wells.
So it is natural that wells play a big part in the Biblical story.
Human life begins around a well in Eden, where a fountain arose that provided water to water the face of the earth (Gen 2.10ff.). Adam awakens from sleep to set eyes on Eve close to this well, an image of the fecundity they were asked to pursue: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’ (Gen 1.28). Abraham spent his life digging wells throughout the promised land, to enable thriving for his children. Enemies stopped them up to make life impossible for them; but Isaac, Abraham’s son, remembered where the wells were, so could dig them again (Gen 26.17f.). Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah, which sealed the fulfilment of the promises to Abraham, was ordained at a well (Gen 24.12ff.). Likewise, Moses, Israel’s legislator, found his wife Zipporah at a well, as she came to draw water (Ex 2.16ff.).
These memories form the backdrop to our Gospel, which is more than just the story of a man who is thirsty after a long morning’s walk under a fierce sun.
The meeting at the well of Sychar, explicitly linked to the patriarch Jacob, that is, Israel (Gen 32.28), fits into a series of well-encounters that determine the working-out in history of God’s covenant with mankind, directed by the law, tempered by mercy.
On the face of it, the meeting could turn out conflictual. The disciples, when they eventually appear, are amazed it has taken place at all. The two who come together represent such different worlds. One is a man, the other is a woman. One is an Israelite, the other is a Samaritan. One is a rabbi, a teacher of the law, the other is a public sinner. One is utterly pure, the other feels dirty, which is why she comes to fetch water in the heat of midday, when everyone else stays indoors and she can avoid the neighbours’ looks of contempt.
One is a wounded human being, carrying regrets and disappointments as well as hope for a fresh start, a person like you and me; the other is ‘God from God’.
Notice how Jesus introduces this meeting of unequals. He asks for a favour. When we stand before God, we may feel we have nothing to offer. Especially now, during Lent, when we take stock of our lives, we may be so conscious of missed opportunities, of graces not acted on, of sins committed, that we feel paralysed, like the poor lame fellows on stretchers Jesus encounters in the Gospel. Yet he says to us, as to them: ‘Rise! I have a task for you. I need your assistance’.
Simple occasions to serve, to perform some gesture of kindness, be it just the pouring of a glass of water, may be a providential means to let us realise that we have, for all our failings, something to give. Let us make sure we do not miss these occasions, which can restore our sense of dignity and purpose.
It becomes clear from the Gospel that Jesus knows the Samaritan woman’s complex history: her series of broken relationships, the imperfect nature of her present union. This is not what he talks to her about, however. Having gained her trust by asking for her help, he speaks instead of the wonderful gifts God wishes to give her. The well by which they are sitting, he says, is a symbol of what she herself can become: within her is hidden a spring of living water that, once found, can well up to eternal life.
Jesus recalls what human nature was like at the beginning, when Adam and Eve, by Eden’s fountain, were filled with the life of God. He recalls the example of Isaac, who dug afresh sources of good, fresh water that had been filled with rubbish by the Philistines. He recalls the nuptial compact that can be made at such wells, sources of happiness and new life.
Jesus does not ignore the disorder that marks the woman’s life. But he shows her, and us, that for order to be restored in us, we need a pattern to work by, a goal to reach. Jesus calls us out of our collusions with sin, of our compromises and tepidity, by showing us what we can become. He is our pattern and our goal. He extends his hand to us, offers us his friendship, and says, ‘Rise! Why be unfree? Why be unhappy? Break your fetters, then come to eat and drink at my wedding feast, where the Church is my beloved bride!’
We do not know what happened next to the Samaritan woman; but we do know that the encounter with Jesus disarmed her and softened her heart, making a new life possible, unstopping her inner well.
That can happen to us, too.
Christ and the Woman at the Well by a follower of Poussin, a painting now in Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Coram Fratribus

Not Useless In the Jewish Museum in Trieste I discovered Vita amara, a film also available online. It describes the impact of the odious racial laws that, in 1938, shattered a centuries-long tradition of peaceful coexistence of peoples in what Charles VI had established as a free port on the Adriatic. Many howled with the wolves, but not all. Tribute is paid to Luciano Serti, a teacher, who at risk to himself continued privately to teach Jewish pupils excluded from public school. When one of them, Bruna Levi, wrote to him to thank him for his kindness, he responded: ‘My dear Bruna, to all the good you say about me, I can only replicate with this great praise: That of my being in your debt for one of the most beautiful things life can give: the joy of sensing that not everything we do is useless, that something remains in the hearts and memories of those close to us whom we endeavour to prepare for life, which, yes, is made up of struggle and war, but which also has a lovely, luminous face, which will be all the more lasting in as much as we shall feel as brothers and sisters to each other, united by the holy bond of goodness.’ When Serti died in 1999, Levi, who survived the Shoah, wrote: ‘He was a great little man of vast and liberal culture, fervent intelligence, a generous heart.’ Such a person can change a world.

Coram Fratribus

Woundedness The snippets below are from a conversation with Fran Otero on the occasion of the launch of Healing Wounds in Spanish. You can find the whole interview on the site of Ecclesia, here, or in PDF, here.
Should you wish to follow a conversation with Ana Zarzalejos on the same subject, you can find it in video format here.
In your opinion, what are today’s world’s wounds?
It is risky to generalise. I suggest we restrict ourselves to the West – or Europe. One wound is mistrust. Another is disappointment as a result of mistrust, which often leads to loneliness and isolation. We also carry the wound of anxiety, which becomes more pronounced as we awaken to the extent of our political, economic and ecological instability.
Lent seems like an apt time to meditate on Christ’s wounds and ours. How can we do this?
By delving deeper into the liturgy of the Church. The liturgy is an extraordinary tool for teaching, and the Church is a great teacher. The liturgy, through its signs, texts, actions, presences, and absences, focuses our attention and sharpens our awareness. If we allow the liturgy to speak to us, if we participate in it, we will be drawn into the mystery. If we allow the liturgy to speak and do not turn it into something banal and boring, the mystery of Lent will be revealed to us and we will be prepared for Easter.
Is liturgy key to evangelisation?
I believe it is crucially important. It is not the only factor, but it is the most significant one. It has always been that way.
What do you think should be the priority of the Church today?
At the risk of disappointing you, I would say it is the coherent proclamation of Christ’s Gospel: proclaiming to the world that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, that death is dead, that forgiveness is possible, and that human beings are called to holiness.
Then a last question. How do you interpret the new world order that seems to be emerging?
With uncertainty, perplexity, unease. These are times for decision-making. We who live in free countries must ask ourselves if we are truly committed to the life we live and the values we claim to defend and share — freedom, equality, hospitality; if we are prepared to make sacrifices to stay free, or would rather sell our freedom if only we are left reasonably undisturbed.
A fourteenth-century German Pietà, now in the Met Cloisters.

Coram Fratribus

Magic Flute In general I hold to the principle: Don’t mess with Mozart. Why footle about with something that, most of the time, touches perfection? Andrea Binetti’s adaptation, though, is delightful. It works, musically and dramatically. Designed for children, this one-act version, lasting exactly an hour, is realised with a small orchestra and only six singers, most of whom take several parts. When I read in the programme that Giacomo Segulia will sing ‘Monostatos and the Three Ladies‘, I thought: Hm? But even that worked, really quite triumphantly. This spare production conveys the enchantment of Mozart. There were children in the audience. They loved the show, that was obvious. Those of us who were, at least in age, grown-up, loved it no less. In the programme Binetti cites Pirandello’s line about the theatre being a place in which one can ‘play at being serious’. I left the theatre feeling rejuvenated and full of joy.

Coram Fratribus

Im- and Expressionism In a spare moment last week I went to see an exhibition currently on at the Museum of the Ara Pacis called ‘Impressionism and Beyond‘. I don’t think I’ve ever found a clearer, more pedagogical account of the movement from impressionism to expressionism. A display cites this statement by Mallarmé: ‘The search for truth, characteristic of modern artists, which enables them to see nature and reproduce it, as it appears to the exact and pure gaze, must compel them to adopt air almost exclusively as their medium, or at least to become accustomed to working in it freely and without constraints.’ I’m not sure I quite understand what this means. I’m not even sure it can fully be understood. Who in this world has an ‘exact and pure gaze’? Still, when you stand before a canvas such as this one of Mont Sainte-Victoire by Cézanne, it’s hard not to think: ‘Well, there’s something to it.’

Charleville Parish Mission
23rd 24th 25th March
Led by John Pridmore
"A great opportunity to find meaning in our lives"
Each night will have a theme;
God's Love
God's Mercy
God's Healing
Please do join us and spread the word
"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is Read More

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