During his inflight press conference following his visit to Sweden, Pope Francis spoke on Tuesday about a range of topics including welcoming refugees, female priests, relations with the charismatic movements, his talks with Venezuela’s President, secularisation, his upcoming journeys abroad and human trafficking. In his
Last week, I had the privilege of speaking to around nine thousand middle school and high school students from the Catholic schools of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. They were gathered in the cavernous Galen Center at the University of Southern California, and the atmosphere in
The National Secular Society (NSS), who, like the rest of us, are not wrong about everything, have an interesting article on their website about a gymnast, Louis Smith (of whom I confess I have never heard) being forced to apologise for insulting Islam. The NSS point out
It is sometimes claimed that the earliest Christians thought only that Jesus was a prophet or a great moral teacher – and that it was not until much later that they started to claim that he was God incarnate. In Dan Brown’s 2003 The Da
Social network analysts subsequently assessed patterns of “citation networks” in the same-sex parenting literature and concluded that there is indeed a consensus out there that claims there are “no differences.” I see it. I just think the foundation for the consensus is more slipshod than rock-solid. It
Is Confirmation the most misunderstood Sacrament? Here are three of the most common misconceptions: Myth 1: The recipient is confirming, as an adult, the faith they received as a child Actually, it’s precisely the opposite: rather than the sacrament being about the recipient confirming something, it’s about
The annual Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair draws upwards of 500,000 visitors from all over the world. This lively, cosmopolitan city is home to one of the nation’s “Public Ivies,” the University of Michigan. Many people understandably come to view and purchase art, but a
A new study by a pair of Notre Dame economists received some media attention this week. It found that school districts that instituted condom distribution programs in the early 1990s saw significant increases in the teen-fertility rate. This study fills an important gap in the
Life, even Catholic life, is full of ambiguities, but some things either are or aren’t. It’s a ball or a strike. It’s a Toyota or a Ford. You’re baptized or you aren’t. The papacy would seem to be one of these you-are-or-you-aren’t realities. According to
The Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo “almost certainly covered the cadaver of the same person.” This is the conclusion from an investigation that has compared the two relics using forensics and geometry. The research was done by Dr. Juan Manuel Miñarro, a
