Who sits with Francis in the papal plane; How Benedict contrasts with history's other pope emeritus; Why one Italian mayor is mad the pope won't take a vacation.
As Francis plans to overhaul the Holy See's media management, a bishop-psychotherapist is assigned to help remove "playboy priests" from an infamous Italian diocese.
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?
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.
Oscar Romero will be declared a martyr, Francis tells bishops to stop "trying to tell Catholics what to do all the time," and cardinals deny the pope has enemies.
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.
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?
Catholic opinion on climate change matches the American political spectrum, and thus the polemics around this polarizing issue are Catholic polemics as well
Controversy over the canonization of California's founding father continues; Bishop Finn is finally gone; and Pope Francis will make visit to U.S. Seminary in Rome.
Posner’s attempt to intertwine Vatican finance with a history of the papacy—"rampant corruption, pervasive nepotism, unbridled debauchery"—isn't neutral, or correct.
In his general audience, Francis listed ways that children undergo their own “passion” (suffering), which he said was almost always caused by the “errors of adults."
There is no question that “mercy” is one of the guiding leitmotifs of Francis’s pontificate. And last week, he emphasized there is no sin that cannot be forgiven.
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?
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.
Spiritual communion, yes; sacramental communion, no. Times may have changed since 1972, but have they changed so much as to invalidate Ratzinger's earlier opinion?
Even several days before consigning the old year to the annals of Vatican history, Pope Francis indicated the new year was likely to be full of surprises.
An American cardinal? Maybe, or maybe not: Some of Francis's choices last year were so unconventional that it’s difficult to know what he’ll do this time around.
The pushback to Pope Francis’s reforms is intensifying and the Jesuit pontiff is not shy to admit it. “But that’s a good sign for me – that it’s out in the open."
It's striking how many priests and bishops famous for quoting papal documents ad nauseam seem unable even to pronounce the name of Francis’s apostolic exhortation.
Since the Synod of Bishops was instituted in 1965, no pope has ever begun an assembly’s first working session with an address like the one Pope Francis gave.
Those hostile to Pope Francis and how he’s governing the Vatican and church have affixed the bull’s eye on the backs of a number of people close to him.
Francis’s view of “domination" as an impediment to virtuous fellowship in society represents concern with unjust relations of many forms, not merely economic ones.
The synod comes at a time when a huge gulf has opened up between the teaching of the church on sex, marriage, and the family and the practice of many Catholics.
It's not the case that Francis has little interest in theological exchanges. Rather, interreligious friendships are more the basis for dialogue than its by-product.
Francis’s new language and style have not been universally welcomed by the bishops, especially those in Italy, where the old guard seems especially recalcitrant.
