Shoes dyed red have become an emblem in Italy’s protests against anti-woman violence.
Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images
A spate of recent high-profile murders has put focus on the role of patriarchy and misogyny in persistent rates of anti-woman violence in Italy.
Catarina was revered in Puebla, Mexico – but devotion to her attracted Catholic authorities’ disapproval after her death.
Image from the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de España
Accounts of Asian American history often stop at the US border, but Asians were living in Latin America for centuries before the Declaration of Independence.
Charlton Heston as Moses in the biblical epic The Ten Commandments.
Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The Bible remains the most important collection of books in Western civilisation. Regardless of our religious beliefs, it has shaped all of us. But who wrote it? The answer is complicated.
A KKK rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Sept. 21, 1923.
Dayton Metro Library
Most of the Klan’s victims were African American, but many other groups have been targeted during the hate group’s century and a half of history.
Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose H. Gomez stands with people celebrating the Virgin of Guadalupe’s feast day in 2022.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
The famous apparition of the Virgin Mary has come to symbolize Mexico, but other groups – particularly migrants and Latinos north of the border – also feel a special connection to Guadalupe.
Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555.
Everett Collection
Witchcraft is an enduring source of fascination but also prone to popular misconceptions.
Delegates attend the opening of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Oct. 4, 2023, at the Vatican.
Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images
Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality is attempting to move the church toward a more dialogue-based model of authority, a scholar of Catholicism explains.
The Sultan of Swat turned every stadium into a cathedral, and home runs into a sacrament.
Bettmann via Getty Images
Ruth’s headline-grabbing home runs helped his sport recover from scandal, while his own story helped combat anti-Catholic prejudice.
Pope Francis (in white) at the opening session of a major congress on the Catholic Church’s future on 4 October 2023.
Massimo Valicchia/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Divisions and tensions in the global church are affecting the church in Africa.
Pope Francis cleans the sky from pollution in graffiti by the artist Maupal, inspired by ‘Laudato Si.’
AP Photo/ Andrew Medichini
Integral ecology, a holistic way of looking at problems the world faces today, is key in the pope’s writings about the environment.
Pope Francis leads a prayer vigil at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Sept. 30, 2023.
Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
As the Synod of Bishops meets in Rome, a Catholic theologian explains the preparations that went into the consultative process and what it says about Pope Francis’ vision for the future church.
Each year, services on St. Francis’ feast day draw humans and animals alike to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Medieval monastics were often discouraged from owning companion animals, which were viewed as a distraction, a religion scholar explains.
Mary of Egypt, The Pantanassa Monastery, Mystras, Peloponnese, Greece.
Olympia Nelson
I was drawn to Mary as a saint, an ascetic, a highly sexual individual navigating her own redemption. Is there something edifying about her story – or does it go into the feminist shame file?
Blaise Pascal’s ideas have led to some of the world’s most important inventions.
API/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Blaise Pascal, a mathematician and a Catholic theologian, born 400 years ago,
left a deep and lasting influence on the world that can be felt today.
Self portrait with a letter.
Musée Rodin / Pallant House Gallery
Gwen John was very much her own woman and followed her own artistic instincts, producing small, intimate, idiosyncratic paintings that resonate.
A still from the film ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ showing Russell Crowe as the real-life Vatican exorcist.
Sony Pictures
How did blockbuster horror films such as ‘The Exorcist’ help the church warm to the controversial ritual?
Russell Crowe as Fr Gabriele Amorth in The Pope’s Exorcist.
Jonathan Hession/Sony Pictures
In reality, most Roman Catholic exorcists recognise the danger of encouraging a person suffering from auditory hallucinations to believe that these are demonic.
Mary is often depicted weeping, a reminder of the ‘Seven Sorrows’ the Bible recounts her suffering.
pratan ounpitipong/Moment via Getty Images
Investigating supernatural claims is a delicate task for the church, and Catholic leaders rarely label them as authentic.
A mural in Derry commemorating the TV show ‘Derry Girls,’ which follows the lives of teenagers growing up amid Northern Ireland’s troubles.
Dominic Bryan
Twenty-five years after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is still resisting the culture of violence.
The AI-generated images of Pope Francis that fooled much of the internet.
Created by Midjourney
Popes wear white to represent Christlike purity and red to symbolise compassion.