Synod officials released an "underwhelming" working document for October's assembly while Italian Catholics gathered to protest gay marriage and gender theory.
Ireland's fiction laureate talks about sex and death in Ireland; Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit to the country; Kafka and kids; and her new novel, 'The Green Road.'
Francis's week: talking church reform with cardinals and peace with Vladimir Putin. And saints' bodies are en route to Rome. Is Francis reviving medieval devotions?
Marx derided religion as an opiate destined to fade away but ultra-orthodoxy is on the rise. What happened to make faith one of the most dynamic forces in the world?
A preview of upcoming papal visits at home, abroad and with Italian protestants. And the press turns Francis's list of "attacks on life" into an abortion debate.
Many people in the West who do not share Christian faith nonetheless share with Christians many of the key ethical values that energize democratic political life.
Many modern American thinkers have asked, often and with anxiety, "What is man?" In his latest book, Mark Greif thinks we've outgrown this—and it's a good thing.
In his final book, the late Peter Gay expands familiar notion of the Romantic rebellion against Enlightenment rationality, to the focus on artistic self-expression.
Readers "angered at the tortured logic of the editors" respond to the removal of Bishop Finn, Francis's failures, the value of "big history," and how to know Jesus.
Cardinal Parolin calls Ireland's gay marriage victory a "defeat for humanity"; progressives and traditionalists hold secret meetings to discuss Synod on the Family.
Unlike past Eurocentric taxonomies of world religions, the latest Norton anthology aims to let six major, living, international religions speak...in their own words.
The starting point for the unraveling of Catholic confidence in the church’s sexual ethics is contraception. Shouldn't the next synod finally meet the issue head-on?
Argentine Archbishop predicts "the people of God" will support Francis's changes long after he's dead—and traditionalists cry schism while non-Catholics convert.
Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell each has its own floor. Evoking horror, repentance and beatitude, more than 40 African artists exhibit a new look at Dante and divinity.
Charles Camosy believes we are “on the verge of a new moment in the abortion debate," politically capable of compromise. But has he misunderstood Catholic teaching?
Is humanity better or worse off believing in the sacred? Kitcher has not provided new reasons for declaring the death of God, but he certainly makes it seem foolish.
Kevin Kruse convincingly claims that the association of patriotism with Christianity comes from a libertarian reaction in American business to the New Deal.
“New atheists” like Richard Dawkins have made a splash with aggressive attacks on religion. But Michael Ruse, philosopher and reflective atheist, is not impressed.
How can we choose to have agency over our lives when we are bombarded by choices? Crawford proposes a way to reclaim your attention span and thereby reclaim yourself
Can the church promote NFP without condemning other forms of contraception as “intrinsically evil”? The blanket condemnation is what most Catholics find implausible.
Studies of NFP techniques like the Creighton Method indicate that they are at least as effective as condoms or pills. So why aren’t more Catholics giving it a try?
Readers expecting a tour de force of church history shouldn't. The question for Wills is this: Why do we need the church or Pope Francis to remind us of God’s love?
Seminaries have four to five years of post-college priestly formation to train men to be leaders of the small “corporations” that parishes have become.
In Pfau's account, when 13th century Franciscan theologian William of Ockham separated reason from will, it was the beginning of the modern evacuation of the self.
Sex for the fun of it, children if and when we choose and of the sort we choose. But would such a world be good for children? And would it be good for sex?
