The present Note responds to numerous requests and proposals that have reached the Holy See in recent decades, and particularly this Dicastery, regarding questions pertaining to Marian devotion and certain Marian titles. These are questions that have concerned recent Popes and have been repeatedly addressed in the last thirty years in various areas of study within the Dicastery, such as Congresses and Ordinary Assemblies...

In the letter to the Hebrews, the author makes a statement of faith that presumes two things about the exercise and practice of a faith in God. One, an active faith proposes a belief in God the Father, and that our hope rests on God, and two, an active faith exercises docility to the will of God, even when we may wonder if He is present during a time of great need...

My mother, Gerardine Ann Frawley, a former publisher of the Register, was just 21 when she began her life-long devotion to St. Martin de Porres. And though the 17th-century mixed-race Dominican from Peru and the Canadian-born child of Irish immigrants would appear to have little in common, St. Martin offered “Gerry” great comfort during some of the darkest moments of her life. The story begins in 1945...

When St. Paul talked about the resurrection of the dead with the philosophers at Athens, many laughed and mocked him . The Gospel, he would later write, is “foolishness” to the wise of this world. Yet this week’s First Reading tells us that it is foolish to think that the souls of the just are dead. Instead, theirs is a “hope full of immortality. ”By His Resurrection, Jesus frees the human race from the fear of death, from the terrible fear of the unknown...

The identity of a teacher is often misperceived as an individual who simply conveys information, regurgitates concepts, and assesses a student's academic competency. In many ways, the entire educational process resembles an assembly line of concepts that aim to construct a functional student from a utilitarian perspective. The thought of guiding a student to utilize their intellect, will, faith, and reason...

It has been said, purportedly by G.K. Chesterton, that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing but in anything. Even worse is that the things which people believe are not merely godless but deadly and demonic. Take, for instance, the modern anti-Christian creeds that led to the French and Russian Revolutions and to the rise of the Nazis...

Most images of saints today show the lingering style of 19th century technique and sentimentality, which is ... not great. They’re disconnected from the reality of these great saints and bathed in a saccharine glow established in perhaps the worst century of Catholic artistic endeavor. From holy cards to statues, Catholics really need to step up our game and starting showing these great men and women either as they were...

Within the walls and corridors of an academic institution that proposes to convey and reaffirm the teachings of the Catholic Church, prudence would dictate that the institution's teachers be consistent in their articulation and dissemination of the Catholic faith. Even more, it would be imperative that anyone charged with echoing the teachings of Jesus Christ be acutely aware of the responsibility to deliver a clear message of both the Gospel of Christ and its content, the Creed. Hence, any teacher would champion the importance of clarity and fidelity to the Christian message conveyed to students to avoid any spiritual or moral confusion...

It is the age between our Lord’s first coming and His last. We live in the new world begun by His life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension, by the sending of His Spirit upon the Church. But we await the day when He will come again in glory. “Lo, the day is coming,” Malachi warns in today’s First Reading. The prophets taught Israel to look for the Day of the Lord, when He would gather the nations for judgment (see Zephaniah 3:8; Isaiah 3:9; 2 Peter 3:7). Jesus anticipates this day in today’s Gospel...

In 2015, on a flight back to the Vatican from the Philippines, Pope Francis told journalists: “There is a book ... it is called Lord of the World. The author is Benson. ... I suggest you read it. Reading it, you’ll understand well what I mean by ideological colonization.” He went on to describe the novel as prophetic, especially in regard to modern developments such as secularism, relativism and the notion...