Ireland, once dubbed “the most Catholic country in the world” by the future Pope Paul VI, has become the first country in the world to adopt same-sex marriage by means of a popular vote. For months, opinion polls had been consistent is showing huge levels of support for the constitutional amendment to re-define marriage. On Read more
If your church has one service at 11:00 am on Sunday mornings, it is likely in the minority. In a recent reader survey we conducted with 1,649 responses, slightly over half of the congregations had only one worship service on Sunday morning, and the times of that single service varied. The “sacred hour” of 11:00 Read more
VATICAN CITY — Six months after becoming the first Latin American pontiff, Pope Francis invited an octogenarian priest from Peru for a private chat at his Vatican residence. Not listed on the pope’s schedule, the September 2013 meeting with the priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, soon became public — and was just as quickly interpreted as a Read more
I call Sr Silvana on the landline and she apologises for not having a mobile signal – she was in the basement. Not walking the cloister in silence but running a hostel and helping the students she works with. Much of our conversation is spent talking about school (I went to one run by the Read more
The beatification of martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero on May 23 will acknowledge what has been celebrated throughout Latin America since his assassination at the altar on March 24, 1980, in El Salvador. Romero gave his life as a good shepherd for his flock in a time of persecution. He modeled what a bishop looks like Read more
“I think it’s fair to say,” says Géza Röhrig softly, “that we haven’t learned anything from Auschwitz. The cruelty exhibited there exists today against the Kurds and elsewhere. “You have a feeling of insecurity about tomorrow. There’s a level of chaos because global powers do not agree on the most minimal consensus.” Röhrig is the Read more
If you read the breathless coverage earlier this week from the mainstream press over the Pew Research Center’s newest Religious Landscape Study, you might believe that religion in America is in deep trouble – specifically Christianity, from which we’re told millennials are fleeing en masse: “Millennials leaving the church in droves, study finds,” CNN splashed Read more
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic Read more
“All the information obtained from the studies and research” carried out on the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo “is in tune with what one would expect – from a forensic medicine point of view – to happen to cloths with these characteristics were they to cover the head of a body featuring Read more
Do the climate change deniers seem more ridiculous than ever? Gee, I dunno, is the pope Catholic? Actually, Pope Francis himself is making them look more ridiculous and isolated than ever. He’s poised to put his moral imprimatur on the scientific consensus about man-made climate change, with a much-anticipated summer encyclical, and this is driving Read more