Before the "Declaration on Religious Freedom" was created, church leaders warned that embracing religious freedom would betray the church’s doctrinal heritage.
Why did a text so significant to the history of Catholicism get such a muted reception in Protestant thought and practice? Look to early commentaries for answers.
Engagement with vexing questions is part of the life of a pilgrim church. It is strangely un-Catholic to assert that doctrine does not and cannot change.
In Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, traditionalists disagree with Pope Francis's “polyhedron ecumenism”; In the U.S. they highlight the faults of married deacons.
In 2016 Francis will be focusing more on calling to the episcopacy and promoting to the cardinalate men who have the charism and willingness to be pastoral bishops.
At the end of his address to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis quietly invoked the memory of one of the most important reform-minded bishops in the United States.
Pope Francis opened the Jubilee Year of Mercy heralding "mercy before judgment" in the spirit of Vatican II. But did the liturgy symbolically contradict the message?
Vatican translators edit piety into pope's speeches; Francis plans 'twelve big gestures to demonstrate God’s mercy' for Jubilee Year; More on 'Vatileaks II' scandal.
Selected articles, interviews, and video from our coverage of the Synod on the Family—and the continuing dialogue about sex, marriage, and Catholic family life.
Engagement rather than denunciation marked the synod’s formal pronouncements, a pastoral style deeply rooted in Vatican II, and embodied in everything Francis does.
Synod Fathers prepare to vote on final document; Pope reminds bishops of Vatican-II hope for episcopal collegiality; More "servant-leader" pastors appointed bishops
Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics was debated, and dismissed, at Vatican II. Fifty years later, the debate continues, but with a difference.
Peter Mitchell's take on Charles Curran and the "dissident theologian" strike at Catholic University in 1967 presents a conspiracy so big it's literally incredible.
Are Catholics still obligated “under pain of mortal sin” to follow what the church teaches? It seems nowadays most believers prefer to focus on grace and Eucharist.
Adult baptism in the United States fell 43 percent between 2005 and 2013. Does it suggest a stagnation of our collective imagination about baptism itself?
The Vatican killed all interest in World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, but Francis let that go to outflank various groups that oppose his other initiatives
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.
Synod officials released an "underwhelming" working document for October's assembly while Italian Catholics gathered to protest gay marriage and gender theory.
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.
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.
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?
The political activist, public intellectual, and "father of modern linguistics" talks about Oscar Romero, Old Testament prophets, and the politics of fear.
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."
Holy Thursday marks the tenth anniversary of the evening when the Vatican’s deputy Secretary of State announced to the world that Pope John Paul II had died.
