Pope Leo XIV on Sunday prayed for the victims of a shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis and deplored a worldwide “pandemic of arms” that has left many children dead or injured. “Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” the pontiff said in English on Aug. 31 after leading the weekly Angelus prayer from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

In “Archaeology Confirms 50 Real People in the Bible” in the March/April 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Purdue University scholar Lawrence Mykytiuk lists 50 figures from the Hebrew Bible who have been confirmed archaeologically. His follow-up article, “Archaeology Confirms 3 More Bible People,” published in the May/June 2017 issue of BAR, adds another three people to the list. The identified persons include Israelite kings and Mesopotamian monarchs as well as lesser-known figures.

A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan late in the evening on 31 August. At least 800 people have already been declared dead and thousands have been injured.Upon hearing the news, Pope Leo XIV sent a telegram to everyone affected by the devastating natural disaster. In the message, signed by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Pope expressed he is “deeply saddened by the significant loss of life”.

Pope Leo XIV met Monday with one of the most prominent advocates for greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church and encouraged his ministry, just days before a planned Holy Year pilgrimage of LGBTQ+ Catholics to the Vatican in a sign of continued welcome. The Rev. James Martin, a New York-based Jesuit author and editor, said Leo told him he intended to continue Pope Francis’ policy of LGBTQ+ acceptance in the church and encouraged him to keep up his advocacy.

A landslide wiped out Tarasin, a village in Sudan’s Darfur region, on August 31, following several days of heavy rainfall. At least 1,000 people were killed in the village in the Marrah Mountains area, according to the Sudan Liberation Movement-Army. On Tuesday, Pope Leo XIV sent a telegram to Bishop Yunan Tombe Trille Kuku Andali, Bishop of El Obeid Diocese, to express his sorrow.

The Vatican announcement that Pope Leo has approved a motion to make St. John Henry Newman the thirty-eighth Doctor of the Church elicited great joy in many Catholics, especially those who attribute their conversions, under God, at least in part to the witness and writings of this great saint. I am in this camp, but it’s important to say that Newman not only helped me into the Church; he taught me about being a good convert after I had entered.

I love to teach a course called “The God of Faith and Reason.” It is always a pleasure to speak with college students about some of the most significant questions people can ask. What can we know? Does God exist? How do faith and reason relate? I teach an ideologically diverse group of students, ranging from Catholics who attend Mass every day to atheists with blue hair. Ninety percent of my students are in neither category...

In popular speech, Armageddon has become a term for the final military battle of world history. It also has an extended meaning and can refer to any devastating conflict, whether or not it would be the final one. Thus, during the Cold War, people feared that World War III would bring about a “nuclear Armageddon,” even if the human race survived. The basis for this idea is found in a passage in the book of Revelation that describes...

Happy Valentine’s Day! Valentine’s Day? Yep. Today’s the customary feast of St. Valentine, Bishop of Strasbourg, who is believed to have been martyred on September 2nd, some year in the early fourth century. Apart from his martyrdom, there’s not much we know about Valentine — except that he’s one of the dozen or so Valentin/Valentine/Valentinos revered as saints of the patristic period, some of whom have been celebrated alongside the more famous Roman martyr-priest Valentine, of February 14.

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