When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1440 in Germany, everything changed. For the first time, words didn’t have to be meticulously hand...
Church history
Discover U.S. Catholic articles on church history that highlight social justice, reform, and the diverse voices that have shaped Catholic tradition.
I’d like to nominate Anthony of the Desert as this year’s patron saint. This third- and fourth-century Egyptian—he lived to be 105—kick-started the famous...
The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World begins by underscoring the church’s humanity and empathy: “The joys...
Memories of a Catholic boyhood. It is Ash Wednesday, and the choices about what to give up for Lent finally take effect. I remember that Ash Wednesday meant...
On October 31, 2016, the same day Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in 1517, the Lutheran World Federation began a yearlong commemoration...
Recent news about limbo kept us, well, in limbo. Is it in or out? To many, this issue had to do with the ability the church to modify its teaching. We tend to...
Ordinary Time, or the season in the liturgical calendar outside of Advent, Lent, and the Christmas and Easter seasons, is a time when the church focuses on the...
That Jesus died for our sins is so ingrained in Christianity it seems almost absurd to question it. It’s in our creed: “For our sake, he was crucified under...
Historical Jesus scholars all agree that Jesus was a Galilean first-century Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, was addressed by his followers as “Rabbi,”...
I spend much of my time speaking to different groups of people throughout the country. As a black Catholic theologian, one of less than a half dozen in this...
