More than 40 years ago, archaeologists discovered what appeared to be a hunk of scroll at the site of En-Gedi, an ancient Jewish community in modern-day Israel. The fragment was charred and crushed, and every touch seemed to hasten its disintegration. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which houses many artifacts from the region, locked the scroll Read more
Fr Gregorio López Gorostieta thought he had done enough to stay safe on the night of December 21, 2014. He had spent a long day celebrating Masses and overseeing a religious festival at the cathedral of Ciudad Altamirano, in southwestern Mexico’s troubled Guerrero state. The end-of-year collection – to fund Asunción seminary, where he taught Read more
Young Americans are less likely to be homeowners, car owners or parents than their predecessors, but they do lead in one category: Pets. Three-fourths of Americans in their 30s have dogs, while 51 percent have cats, according to a survey released by research firm Mintel. That compares to 50 percent of the overall population with dogs, and Read more
Religion is big business. Just how big? A new study, published Wednesday by a father-daughter researcher team, says religion is bigger than Facebook, Google and Apple — combined. The article in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion said that the annual revenues of faith-based enterprises — not just churches but hospitals, schools, charities and even Read more
Alister Castillo, 26, is about to become ordained as a Deacon, a minister of the Catholic church. For the last six and a half years Castillo lived at the Holy Cross College in Auckland, the national Roman Catholic seminary for the training of priests. On September 23 he will commit to a life of religious service. “I have had the Read more
Tim Wilson is a changed man. In the past four years he has converted to Catholicism, met and married singer/songwriter Rachel, and had two “sparkling” children — Roman, 17 months, and Felix, five months — whose existence lights him up from the inside like a sky lantern. For those readers who might confuse fiction for Read more
What if our government really wanted to save money? As well as going after $6.7 billion in its omnibus savings bill, it could go after the billions more it costs to run our immigration detention centres: $9.2 billion in the past three years, $3.9 billion to $5.5 billion in the next four, according to the most complete Read more
When a therapist friend told Allison Havey that her then 13-year-old son was almost certainly viewing online pornography, she felt angry. “I was offended because I thought, why would he be doing that? It’s deviant behaviour and he’s not deviant.” What Allison now knows is that it’s natural for boys to want to look at Read more
“It started coming down on us.” Fifteen years ago, Capt. Thomas Colucci led the men of his 31st Street firehouse into what would be the finest hour for New York City’s fire, police and emergency responders: Ground Zero on Sept. 11. After the South Tower collapsed, the Catholic fire captain and his firefighters began digging Read more
I did not expect that arranging an interview with Mother Teresa would be difficult. As Time magazine’s bureau chief in New Delhi in the late 1980s and ’90s, I frequently interviewed prime ministers, generals, political leaders and just about anyone in the news in south Asia. But repeated phone calls to the motherhouse of the Read more