I found Art Allen a few miles inland from some uninviting Connecticut beach. He was in his mid-60s at the time, a scientist with a man-of-action feel to him. He wore a Coast Guard Search and Rescue polo, a massive Fenix 3 GPS watch, and he had this snow-white Hemingway beard. Six canoes hung from hooks inside his garage, mountain bikes leaned against the wall, and all looked as if they had a lot of miles on them. So did he.

Among the many remarkable literary gifts the great Doctor of Catholic education, St. John Henry Newman, has left us, one resonates as we prepare to recall the nativity of our Lord during this Advent season. In his meditation on the effects of sin, he describes with great detail what sin does to man. His description of the effects of sin...

We all want to be seen and approved. Indeed, if we are not seen and approved by someone then we will not only feel but actually be quite alone. It is understandable, then, that a proverbial human temptation is to seek approval or glory for its own sake. We might think here of how this temptation is fanned today by various common practices of parading what we do before the eyes of others.

I am back in Washington after our first-ever Pillar Pilgrimage to Rome. It was, honestly, a time of great consolation for me. The first weeks of Advent are meant, as we all know, to lift our eyes a little higher to the horizon of the end of time and the coming of the Lord in glory. As someone perpetually preoccupied with the immediate, it was an immense gift to be “forced,” in a way, to set the quotidian concerns of the day’s news aside — at least a bit — and be reminded that there is a Good News much more important for me to both give and receive.

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...

A look at popular Eastern Orthodox objections to Catholicism—and why many of the same critiques, from papal authority to ecclesial scandals, apply across both apostolic traditions. The video urges viewers to move beyond online polemics and toward serious theological dialogue aimed at eventual unity...

In this centenary year of the establishment of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, it is both my responsibility and my pleasure to share some reflections that I consider important for the Church in our present time. I do so with a grateful heart, knowing that when our memory of the past is illuminated by faith and purified by charity, it nourishes hope...

When Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to the peasant Juan Diego in 1531, Mesoamerica stood at a crossroads. The Aztec Empire had fallen, yet the religious imagination it shaped remained formidable. Centuries of human sacrifice soaked the land and the collective memory. Atop their temples, Aztec priests tore the still-beating hearts from countless victims, lifting them to feed the sun...

On the centenary of the founding of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, Pope Leo XIV published a new apostolic letter in which he praised Christian archaeology as a work capable of “giving a voice to the silence of history” and of “bringing to light the anonymous holiness of many faithful who have contributed to building up the Church.”

In this episode of the Upstream Podcast, Father John Riccardo and I explore a fundamental shift in how church leaders can view and use volunteers, emphasizing that the church is the Body of Christ and not a corporation. The biggest challenges are rooted in low expectations, treating volunteers generically, and creating...