It is almost instinctively that one reaches, when attempting to explain what is going on today in the Catholic church, for metaphors out of the natural world — storms, earthquakes, seismic shifts — to get at the magnitude of events. We search for the terms that explain what we’re experiencing: phenomena beyond the ordinary disturbances Read more
Scientists have speculated that the human brain features a “God spot,” one distinct area of the brain responsible for spirituality. Now, University of Missouri researchers have completed research that indicates spirituality is a complex phenomenon, and multiple areas of the brain are responsible for the many aspects of spiritual experiences. “We have found a neuropsychological Read more
For Benedict XVI, this has been a week of milestones. The pontiff turned 85 on Monday, making him the oldest pope in the last 110 years and one of just six to reign past 85 in the last half-millennium. On Thursday, Benedict also marked the seventh anniversary of his election to the papacy in April Read more
“Become the woman of your dreams, and you’ll attract the man of your dreams,” Sarah Swafford advises young women. As “dorm mom,” or resident hall director, to 142 girls who lived in Benedictine College’s St. Scholastica Hall, Swafford had a “front-row seat” into the lives of young women who came to her to talk about Read more
In November 2011, I was one of a team of four lecturers from Yarra Theological Union (YTU), Melbourne, which led a month-long liturgical study tour to Europe. The tour, entitled “Realising the Vision: 150 Years of Liturgical Renewal”, was offered to YTU students and to anyone who had an interest in contemporary liturgical renewal. With 25 Read more
Fr Thomas Byles, who grew up in Lancashire, was described by Pope Pius X as a ‘martyr for the Church’. This year, as the centenary is kept of the “unsinkable” liner’s collision with an iceberg in the Atlantic, and as we remember and pray for its 1,500 or more victims, there is another hero of Read more
As Pope Paul VI once famously told the United Nations, the Catholic church likes to think of itself as an “expert in humanity.” Development of Catholic social teaching over the last 120 years is a good example, as the church has tried to bring its moral tradition to bear on questions of economic justice. Yet Read more
When Pope Benedict XVI travelled to Cuba two weeks ago, he was acting within a long tradition. Popes, after all, are not only spiritual leaders, they are representatives of the oldest continuous absolute monarchy in the world, which traces back to the Apostle Peter two millennia ago: The Holy See has been engaging in diplomacy Read more
Holy Week and Easter has just been observed right around the world. The Atlantic has posted a picture gallery of 38 images depicting the different ways Easter has been observed. “Families attended church services, hooded penitents took part in processions, and children hunted for Easter eggs. In Catholic passion plays, participants depicted Jesus’ trial and Read more
Rick Santorum, the Catholic pro-life GOP presidential candidate, recently provoked a furor when he attacked President John Kennedy, Jr.’s 1960 speech designed to defuse anti-Catholic bigotry by embracing an “absolute” separation between church and state. It was vintage Santorum, underscoring his unique, sometimes frustrating contribution to the national debate on a host of issues, from Read more