On May 7, 2025, the mendicant friar Father Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, son of Louis Marius Prevost and Mildred Agnes Martinez, became Pope Leo XIV. As...
Religion
Essays explaining our faith, including stories about church teaching, Vatican documents, canon law, liturgical theology, and other Catholic topics.
As a child, Teresa of Avila—the 16th century Spanish saint and mystic—hatched a plan with her brother, Rodrigo. She had been reading about how wonderful heaven...
A popular diagram among conservative Christians depicts a stack of open umbrellas. The biggest one, sheltering the others, is labeled “God.” The next is...
The election of Cardinal Robert Prevost, O.S.A. as Pope Leo XIV represents a profound milestone in the life of the Catholic Church, with a U.S.-born prelate...
Any Catholic with an interest in church politics probably knows about the tradition of “papal smoke” when a new pontiff is chosen. Crowds gather in Vatican...
When you think of the word “college” an 850-year-old all-male institution with an average age in the mid-70s may not be the first thing that comes to mind...
They say the church is not a democracy…but it still hosts historically important elections. Councils, synods, and even parishes often employ democratic norms...
What happens when the pope dies? Rituals surrounding the pope’s death begin with the Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, or Camerlengo. The Camerlengo is a...
On Monday April 21, 2025, at age 88, Pope Francis passed away. He had recently spent 38 days in the hospital for double pneumonia. Elected to the papacy on...
