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...
Religion
Essays explaining our faith, including stories about church teaching, Vatican documents, canon law, liturgical theology, and other Catholic topics.
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...
Our understanding of priests, bishops, and deacons has changed dramatically in the church’s long history, says historian Gary Macy. In this web-only...
After giving one of the three plenary addresses on the Eucharist at a gathering of the Catholic Theological Society of America in 1997, church historian Gary...
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...
Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the church faces new challenges. In this final installment of a three-part series, Father Myles...
Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the church faces new challenges. In this final installment of a three-part series, Edmund Chia and...
When President Dwight Eisenhower laid the cornerstone of the National Council of Churches building in New York in 1958, David L. Holmes stood in the crowd of...
Fifty years after the game-changing Second Vatican Council a new generation helps the church respond to today’s signs of the times. Father Benezet Bujo...
Fifty years after the game-changing Second Vatican Council a new generation helps the church respond to today’s signs of the times. Here, professor Phyllis...
