In the 20th century, an engineer from Philadelphia encouraged others to create their own Mary gardens and established a company that sold seeds with Marian plant names.
Depiction of an eruption of Vesuvius seen from Portici, by Joseph Wright (c. 1774–6).
Huntington Library, Pasadena
Surrogacy can exploit women, but others may choose to be involved for altruistic reasons. A scholar points out that surrogacy’s ethical value is dependent upon the people and systems who use it.
Hundreds of Australians wrote to Jackie Kennedy after her husband was killed. The letters paint a revealing portrait of who we were and who we wanted to be.
New cardinals at St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sept. 30, 2023.
AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca
The College of Cardinals is an important part of the church’s governance structure. Its members elect the next pope and help develop future policies for the church.
Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to meet the tiny Catholic community of Mongolia is drawing considerable interest.
Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images
Not quite, writes an expert on Christian worship. Chatbots do not have human experience of love – and, above all, they lack a soul.
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.
André Dao has kept the legacy of his grandparents alive in Anam, a brilliant novel of immense scope that became a full quest for the truth of his family history, which spans the two Vietnam Wars.
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.
Last week, Pope Francis repudiated a 500-year-old-decree justifying colonialism. This image is from last summer: at Lac Ste. Anne, Alta., in Canada.
(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation and Boké Saisi, The Conversation
The Vatican has repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, a 500-year-old decree used to justify settler colonialism. Scholar Veldon Coburn explains this symbolic victory and what still needs to happen.
The AI-generated images of Pope Francis that fooled much of the internet.
Created by Midjourney
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has a history going back to the 16th century, when some Orthodox bishops and their followers agreed to become Catholic.
Pope Francis in Nairobi, Kenya, during his first papal visit to the African continent in 2015.
Nichole Sobecki/Getty Images
Pell, often described as a conservative Catholic, was jailed for child sexual abuse in Australia in 2019 but maintained his innocence and was acquitted the following year.
The Catholic funeral of IRA volunteer Martin Hurson who died after 46 days on hunger strike at Long Kesh prison in 1981.
Homer Sykes / Alamy
In a fraught and complex situation the Catholic Church sought to mediate the conflict where it could, but drew much ire and criticism for not doing enough.
The National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini in Chicago recently offered indulgences.
Myriam Renaud
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.
The Catholic hymn, “Te Deum” – which says, “You, God, we praise” – has been used for centuries in Catholic worship for thanksgiving.
Iconotheca Valvasoriana Author Jean Marot via Wikimedia Commons.
The Pilgrims who started the first Thanksgiving tradition after they landed in Plymouth were following the customs they had grown up with, originating in medieval times.
Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at IUPUI and Journalist-fellow, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences