Nothing has changed me as much as being friends with gay people has. The theory, the doctrine, the dogma: it all disappears in the face of friendship and love.
Laura Swan does a good job of explaining both the beguines’ spiritual practices in the context of their own times and how their continuing legacy affects us today.
Whether or not U.S. support for LGBT rights goes beyond the rhetorical, societies still viewing themselves as “under God” will bridle at this sudden turn about.
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.
The core liberal conviction about the Supreme Court still rings true: it is most constructive when power is used to vindicate the rights of beleaguered minorities.
Anne Enright's new novel suggests something simple—family, for good or ill, keeps forming us even when we try to escape it—but her prose constantly surprises.
In her new book, Jane Maienschein lays out the history of embryonic science—going back to Aristotle—hoping to answer an old question: When does a human life begin?
Readers continue the conversation on the morality of contraception in 2015 and how Europe is handling its two most important crises and America its defunct railways.
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.'
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.
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.
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?
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?
Baxter reads fiction to “see bad stuff happening.” He writes characters who get into serious trouble, and face their own "human wreckage" at someone else's request.
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.
Tushnet's memoir illuminates a theology of friendship, the outward-looking call to love and serve, devotions to troubled saints, and a healthy anti-clericalism.
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?
Sexual misdeeds, false identities, cult worship, theft, and murder; if this astonishing tale were not true, it could be the work of an accomplished mystery writer.
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.
