Before anything else, take a minute to pray this morning for 253 students and 12 teachers who were kidnapped last Friday from St. Mary’s School in Papiri, northwestern Nigeria. In fact, more than 300 students were kidnapped last week, but 50 managed to escape their captors late Friday night, and to run home. The students are between 12 and 17 years old. Most of them live at the school...

In the Gospels it often seems as if Jesus grants healing to anyone who asks for it. For many of us, this raises the question of why the same doesn’t hold true today. We all know people who have prayed for healing for years without ever seeming to receive what they ask for. Perhaps we’ve even had that experience ourselves. So why is Jesus apparently less willing to heal people today than He was when He walked on earth?

Sometimes, God uses big meals with fettuccine alfredo to open doors for encounter, wisdom and subtle evangelization. Father Scott Bailey, pastor of Risen Christ Parish in Denver, created that opportunity in guiding and consulting for a top Hollywood film writer, producer and director who happens to be the nephew of one of his parishioners...

I didn’t see this coming. I could hardly believe the news article that came across my desk the other day: none other than Bill Gates was urging climate advocates to rethink their priorities and rhetoric so that their work truly serves the good of the world. Remarkably, he even says something that could have come straight from a papal encyclical...

When Heather Vreeman’s husband called her from Greenville, South Carolina, where he was interviewing for a job, she was eager to hear what he thought of the area. “I think you are going to love it, and I think I found our church,” he told her. That church, St. Mary’s in downtown Greenville, wasn’t the reason they moved from San Diego...

Pope Leo XIV called for renewed commitment to ecumenism among Christian denominations on Sunday, urging all Christians and their leaders to deepen their communion in the commonly confessed tenets of the faith. In an apostolic letter released ahead of a papal trip to Nicea — during which Leo will join the Patriarch of Constantinople to mark the 1700th anniversary of the ecumenical council...

Pope Leo XIV finished the third day of his apostolic journey to Turkey and Lebanon with a Mass at Volkswagen Arena, a soccer stadium in Istanbul's Maslak neighborhood.The Holy Father marked the day in part by joining Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I for a declaration pledging continued dialogue aimed at restoring full communion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The two leaders also participated in a Doxology together.

Jimmy Akin corrects popular Franciscan YouTuber Fr. Casey Cole’s claim that it’s “not appropriate” to pray privately after Communion and that EVERYONE must sing the Communion hymn. Jimmy goes through the argument line-by-line and exposes the claim as a classic “pious little legalism.” Jimmy quotes parts of the General Instruction that Fr. Casey never mentioned and reveals what Rome actually says about post-Communion prayer...

The place of gratitude in human life is at once obvious and remarkably complex. Great pagan philosophers (such as Seneca) as well as Christian theologians (such as Thomas Aquinas) have treated it at some length. This much is clear: learning both to be grateful and to express it regularly are central to the art of living a good life.

I work with priests and bishops from all around the country, so I am blessed to have conversations that the average lay person doesn’t get. In fact, since I am no longer an institutional insider (since I work for our apostolate now), I am considered “safe” to talk to and therefore, I get to hear what is really happening with them. They ask for advice...