Forty-five years ago, 'The Exorcist' terrified viewers with its portrayal of a practice that goes back several centuries and continues today in Christianity.
What might have motivated the young missionary killed on a remote island in India?
AP Photo/Sarah Prince
In their zeal to evangelize the world, at the end of 19th century, young families were sent overseas with little to no training in anything beyond the Bible and no promise of funding.
A sculpture of Meister Eckhart in Germany.
Lothar Spurzem
Meister Eckhart was a 14th-century Dominican friar, who gave sermons on the direct experience of God. His words are finding resonance among today’s spiritual seekers.
Dorothy Day with publisher Robert Ellsberg.
Jim Forest/Flickr.com
The founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day, led a life full of paradoxes. An expert explains how there's much to learn from her life - especially how to see beauty in the least.
A conservator works with a portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls containing Psalm 145 at The Franklin Institute, in Philadelphia.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
The real lessons of Jesus Christ as outlined in the Bible are socialist. But the Church, a veritable old boys club, doesn't teach us that.
In 2014, in, a small town in northern Israel, Christian worshippers gathered next to a statue of the Virgin Mary, that they said ‘weeps’ oil.
AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
Throughout Catholic history, miracles have been attributed to Virgin Mary's power. She is understood to cry not only over the sins of the world, but over the pain she experienced in her earthly life.
Jeff Sessions is citing the Bible in defending the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File
Sessions ignored the many gospel teaching about love, and used a passagethat has been used historically to justify all manner of immoral behavior, including imperialism, slavery, Nazism and apartheid.
Churches started to use ashes early as the ninth century as a symbol of repentance. In 1091, Pope Urban II ritualized their use to mark the beginning of Lent. Today, churches provide 'ashes to go.'
Relics of St. Valentine of Terni at the basilica of Saint Mary in Cosmedin.
Dnalor 01 (Own work)
Lisa Bitel, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Valentine's Day originated as a feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third-century Christian martyr, or perhaps two. So how did the day become a celebration of love?
Family is not a clearly defined structure in the story: It isn’t biological or reflective of some 'norm.' It is instead a choice to stick together, come what may.
A worshipper receives Communion.
Amr Nabil/AP Photo