In June 2024, the head of the Vatican communications department, Paolo Ruffini, vigorously defended his office’s continued use of the artwork of Father Marko Rupnik on the Vatican website. He argued that it was premature to judge Father Rupnik’s guilt regarding the many charges of sexual abuse of consecrated women he faces, and that “removing, deleting, destroying art ... is not a Christian response.”

In February 2025, scientists released a digital reconstruction of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s face based on his relics. Dominican friars shared what it meant to them to glimpse their beloved brother, but they are not the first to be moved by his impressive appearance. In fact, the appearance of St. Thomas was nothing less than arresting...

Her world ended in the 10 days she was in the hospital with her newborn daughter, Tamar, Dorothy Day wrote a little dramatically many years later. “If I had written the greatest book, composed the greatest symphony, painted the most beautiful painting or carved the most exquisite figure, I could not have felt more the exalted creator than I did when they placed my child in my arms,” she wrote in the preface to her book Therese, a biography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

In late May, Trump administration officials at the highest level, frustrated by what they regard as Vladimir Putin’s incomprehensible obstreperousness over his war on Ukraine, suggested that their patience was running out, after which the United States — which has not approved further military supplies for Ukraine in months — would leave the combatants to their own devices. “It’s not our war,” was the mantra of the day...

Years ago, when I was a fresh convert studying for my Master’s degree at Franciscan University, it was also striking to see many large families at Mass. But there was one family prayer ritual that always stuck out - the Hahn Huddle. It was Scott Hahn and his family huddling up after Mass in prayer. I recently asked Scott what prayers their family said together...

Catholics are against divorce in theory, but not in practice. That sad truth has led to countless Catholic marriages and families shattered, causing a ripple effect of destruction through generations. Perhaps we find ourselves in this unhappy reality because we have not heard the following six things from the pulpit or the Catholic community for many long decades. Do you know these truths?

Professor John Senior, my godfather and one of the professors of the famed Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, was a master of hyperbole. He once hinted to us, his students, that we should just go home and smash our television sets. Perhaps he didn’t mean this literally, but he suggested that this was something we should consider. I know of at least one fellow student who took him at his word and dropped his 19-inch Motorola black and white television set out of the window of his fourth-floor dorm room onto the concrete alley below.

For many of us it is hard to find time to listen to great music. Even though convinced it would be good for us, we struggle to fit it in. Perhaps we can combine two good things: doing dishes and great music. In any case, both are worth making time for. This is a suggestion for everyone, but especially directed to dads...

Pope Leo XIV reflected on Christian hope — one of the three theological virtues, along with faith and charity — during his general audience on Wednesday. “There is no cry that God does not hear, even when we are unaware that we are addressing him,” the pope said, illustrating this idea with the story of Bartimaeus, described in the Gospel of Mark as a blind beggar who encountered Jesus as He was leaving Jericho.

This video maps out the surprising geographic history of the film industry—from Fort Lee, New Jersey to Hollywood, California, and finally to Georgia. Using historical maps, movie studio archives, and tax incentive data, I explore how movie production migrated across the United States...