Pope Francis is a highly original and supple thinker, with a breadth of knowledge accumulated over five decades. A new book fleshes out his intellectual journey.
Some Catholic moral theologians have recently expressed doubts about the fidelity of scholars in the field to the magisterium. But such doubts are unfounded.
We need to move beyond our inherited clericalism. The idea that the laity have no agency in the church is not magisterial teaching; it is not, in fact, true
Essays by a master medievalist, ranging from painting to purgatory, monasticism to monarchy highlight the fact that Christianity has long been materialistic
Jack Miles plays the role of voluntary expatriate in his enlightening and hugely sympathetic reading of the Qur’an, and we are all in his debt for doing so
In the fraught history of Jewish-Christian relations, Protestants and Catholics developed different responses to supercessionism, a legacy that must be confronted
The Jesuit theologian has recently come under fire for his supposed racism and support of eugenics; but great religious thinkers must be read with care and precision
Adequately “interpreting miracles” requires more than biblical exegesis. It demands a coherent and consistent construal of reality, which modernity cannot provide
A new translation of The Enneads, the third-century cosmological poem by Plotinus, is likely to remain the definitive critical edition in English for years to come
Rather than further controversy over nomenclature, the church needs a theology adequate to the current scientific understanding of sexuality and gender
If the church wants to help laypeople make informed decisions about their reproductive choices, it needs to listen more deeply to their concrete experiences
After reading news of the lawsuits brought against the Diocese of Fairbanks and the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, I left the church for good.
One thing our contributors agree on is that the question of belonging to the church is not a trivial one; the days of Catholicism by default are behind us
A new book examines the origins of the pope-centered church, in which we assume that the bishop of Rome writes encyclicals, convokes councils, and declares saints
