Two miracles have been attributed to Carlo Acutis.
PA Images/Alamy
Acutis, who loved playing video games and teaching himself computer coding, could become the first ‘gamer saint’
A group of witches offering wax effigies to the Devil in a 17th-century woodcut.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
Only five witches were executed in Wales, while thousands were sentenced to death in Scotland and England.
Depiction of an eruption of Vesuvius seen from Portici, by Joseph Wright (c. 1774–6).
Huntington Library, Pasadena
The story of how a ‘new Pompeii’ was built is far less well known than that of the ancient city.
Tzotzil women line up for Holy Communion during a Catholic Mass in Chiapas state, Mexico, in 2016.
AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo
Indigenous Catholics have long argued they should be able to embrace both sides of that identity.
(L-R) The Rockox Triptych by Rubens (1613–1615), Christ as the Man of Sorrows by Maerten Jacobsz van Heemskerck and The Last Judgement by Michelangelo (1541).
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp/Sistine Chapel
The Bible is full of strong men and pumped prophets.
The crucifixion of Christ inside Chester Cathedral.
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The ancient tenebrae tradition brings churchgoers face to face with the darkest moments of the Christian story.
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.
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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.
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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.