When Catholics hear the word evangelization, we tend to think of Protestants. This is not surprising. They have been highly visible in spreading the gospel of...
Glad You Asked
Glad You Asked is a column that presents informed, enlightened responses to basic questions of Catholic doctrine, history, identity, or pastoral practice.
The easy answer to that question is, we, the church, did. The feasts and seasons of the liturgical year all developed from the church’s desire to remember...
You won’t find the phrase “original sin” in the Bible. The story of humanity’s “fall” in Genesis 1 doesn’t use the term, and St. Paul, one of the church’s...
On Christmas Eve 1223, St. Francis created the first nativity in the Italian city of Greccio. With the help of a local nobleman, Francis celebrated the birth...
Before the obligatory “Ave Maria” and a crazy aunt leading “YMCA” at the reception, guests at a Catholic wedding witness “a covenant by which a man and a woman...
Vatican II closed its sessions nearly four decades ago. Anyone who remembers the church before the council knows that the church has been radically changed in...
A few years ago the Vatican issued a revised version of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the “guidebook” for how to celebrate the Mass. The cover...
While there are several definitions of the word “doctor,” they all go back to the Latin word for “teacher.” It is this meaning whence doctors of...
James Joyce said it best in Finnegans Wake that “Catholic means here comes everybody.” Our word “catholic” comes from a Greek adjective meaning “universal” and...
The Liturgy of the Hours is a small but bulky and intimidating-looking red-bound prayer book with lots of confusing multicolored ribbons. It is that, but of...
