A march for climate action in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in June 2015. Pope Francis praised the participants, who included Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus.
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Purple was highly valued and associated with royalty, power, and prestige in various ancient cultures, including the Roman and Byzantine Empires. So how did red creep its way in?
Even in films where religion isn’t front and center, Martin Scorsese’s attention to ritual and devotion comes through.
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Though only a few of Scorsese’s films focus on religious stories, deeper questions about faith, doubt and living in a violent world tend to haunt his movies.
A ceremony to punish people for heresy, called an ‘auto da fe,’ in the town of San Bartolome Otzolotepec, in present-day Mexico.
Museo Nacional de Arte/Wikimedia Commons
Conversion was often a violent affair, but that doesn’t mean it was 100% successful. Colonial Latin America was home to many different spiritual traditions from Indigenous, African and Asian cultures.
A priest and Catholic worshippers pray in front of an image of ‘Sangre de Cristo,’ burned in a fire on July 2020, at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua.
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Kai M. Thaler, University of California, Santa Barbara
When President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006, church figures supported him. Violent repression after the 2018 protests has soured the relationship and made clergy targets for intimidation.
Delegates attend the opening of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Oct. 4, 2023, at the Vatican.
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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.
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.
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The Catholic Church practice of granting indulgences, criticized by Martin Luther in the 16th century, still exists, as part of the doctrine – but in a different form.
Pope Francis commemorates the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council by celebrating a Mass.
AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Popes’ roles have changed over time. Some periods produced plenty of saintly popes, while others are notorious for the opposite.
Pope Francis waves to the crowd, making his way to the Plains of Abraham during his Papal visit in Québec City on July 27, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot
Visiting Indigenous people on their land was a step in the right direction, but the pope’s visit was full of tensions over both what was said and what wasn’t.
A mural in Kyiv depicts the Virgin Mary cradling a U.S.-made anti-tank weapon, a Javelin, which is considered a symbol of Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put a spotlight on the views of the Russian Orthodox Church. A scholar of Russian religion explains the structure and history of Orthodox Christianity.