On June 18, Pope Francis will publish the Church's first enyclical on ecology. While for many this is an exciting and unprecedented move, others have...
Religion
Essays explaining our faith, including stories about church teaching, Vatican documents, canon law, liturgical theology, and other Catholic topics.
When Pope Francis announced his new crop of cardinals earlier this year, it did not go unnoticed that no Americans were on the list. There was no red hat for...
Since the early Middle Ages, all Christians have used the same method for determining the date of Easter, though they arrive at a different result. Described...
Pope Francis entered the papal conclave wearing the scarlet red of a cardinal and emerged in gleaming white. From where did this tradition arise? The old...
Since 1963 the church has taught that Catholics can be cremated, abolishing its longstanding prohibition of the practice. Cremation was fairly widespread in...
Borrowing from the Letter to the Hebrews and from theologian and Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson, we can imagine the communion of saints as a giant...
Traditionally, Catholics believed that a person could reach heaven only if he or she was buried in a Catholic cemetery. But limited space meant few people...
It’s now been almost a year since Pope Francis issued his apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel.” Much has been written about this...
A woman I know quit her job as an administrator in student life at a Catholic university because she could no longer stomach what the church had to say about...
Will the Synod on the Family bring change for divorced and remarried Catholics? One influential reform-minded cardinal hopes so. With the first of two meetings...
