Archbishop Alexander Sample has been elected chairman of the US bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty after an unusual tie in the conference vote. The plenary meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delivered an unexpected moment when the routine election of a committee chair ended in an extraordinary stalemate.

On December 9, 1965, 45 million Americans tuned in to CBS to watch the premiere of A Charlie Brown Christmas. The half-hour animated Christmas special has aired every year since then. As A Charlie Brown Christmas turns 60 this year, it is worth asking why this program, with its unapologetically Christian treatment of the holiday season, continues to be embraced year after year by a culture that has become increasingly secularized...

Pope Leo XIV during an address at the Vatican on Thursday called for the “prudent” evaluation of supernatural phenomena to avoid falling into superstition. “To avoid falling into superstitious illusion, it is necessary to evaluate such events prudently, through humble discernment and in accordance with the teachings of the Church,” the Holy Father said to participants...

There is nothing like the experience of being seen by eyes that love you. Here, and perhaps here alone, we feel truly seen. But actually our happiness is grounded in, and indeed requires, an astounding, unique instance of such love: a love that not only sees everything but also orchestrates everything. Too often we forget or ignore this, much to our unhappiness...

More than 300 children and staff are now thought to have been kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, making it one of the worst mass abductions the country has seen.The Christian Association of Nigeria said 303 students and 12 teachers were taken from on St Mary's School in Papiri, Niger state - substantially more than previously estimated.

When the first child of any parent is born, there is great expectancy and anticipation that both parents and the entire family experience, as the joy that the first child brings to both parents and the extended family is shared. Specifically, the joy I reference can be described as an act of faith, because after the initial joy of birth, the family rejoices in the gift of this new member...

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 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...

The second day of Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic journey to Turkey is focused on praying with the Christian community. Watch LIVE the major events of this trip at youtube.com/@ewtnnews and follow our live updates of his historic visit:

I begin my Introduction to Philosophy course by reading Socrates’ defense of the philosophical way of life. Democratic Athens had found him guilty of corrupting the youth, of making the weaker argument defeat the stronger, of not believing in the gods of the city. These are serious charges, but as Plato later argued, they were sham charges designed to hide the shame of all those whose errors were revealed by the Socratic art of question and answer.