Acutis, who loved playing video games and teaching himself computer coding, could become the first ‘gamer saint’
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
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?
People pray over the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster at the abbey of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, near Gower, Mo., in April 2023.
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
People are congregating in Missouri after news spread that the exhumed body of a nun had not decayed four years after her death. There is a long history to these claims.
A stone statue of Dewi Sant inside St Davids Cathedral in Pembrokeshire.
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Much of what we know about the life of the sixth century monk, St David, comes from medieval texts written several centuries later.
People pray in front of the tomb of the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI inside the grottos of St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican, on Jan. 8, 2023.
AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
A specialist in Catholic liturgy and rituals explains that while several popes have been canonized, it is a long process that may take several years to examine and uncover any hidden flaws.
Pope John Paul I greets the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in August 1978.
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The country urgently needs more people who are committed to living decently to undo the systemic humiliation caused by political and economic institutions.
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
Eclipsed by the more popular Saint Patrick, Gertrude of Nivelles is also celebrated today, a holy woman who somewhat inexplicably became the patron saint of cats.
Olga of Kyiv is today recognised as one of Eastern Orthodoxy’s greatest saints – and her bloodthirsty tale is one of defiance and vengeance, and worth remembering today.
Bearers carry the relic and the statue in honor of St. Anthony of Padua during a procession in Rome, Italy. St. Anthony of Padua was proclaimed a doctor of the church in 1946.
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Saints are recognized for exceptional virtue and faith. But some also are commemorated for their scholarship.
Pope Francis has laid emphasis on protecting the environment, but he’s not the only pope to speak about caring for nature.
AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
Environmentalism may seem like a new mindset, especially in the Church. But care for creation has been woven into Catholicism for centuries.
A sculpture of two saints meeting and embracing embodies the importance of touch in Renaissance culture as a form of devotion and ultimately a way to access the divine.
(Renaissance Polychrome Sculpture in Tuscany database)
After a year of pandemic social distancing, we know touch is a much-desired privilege. In the Italian Renaissance, people longed to touch not only each other, but also religious sculptures.
Hindu devotees attend evening prayers on the banks of the Ganges River during the religious Kumbh Mela festival in Haridwar, India.
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Kumbh Mela, a Hindu pilgrimage that started earlier this month in India, has survived wars and famine since its origin. But the biggest threat has been the spread of illness – back then as now.
Saint James the Lesser is believed to have been martyred in AD 70.
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Professor of Public Theology in the Department of Beliefs and Practices, Faculty of Theology, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam