Catholic Social Teaching

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This quote from British author Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often misattributed to Voltaire) might sound rather foreign on many college campuses throughout the country today, who in many ways seem to prefer to be... Read more

Your perversity is as though the potter were taken to be the clay: As though what is made should say of its maker, “He did not make me!” (Isaiah 29:16) These words are as pertinent today as when they were first spoken by the prophet Isaiah (ca 740-681 BC). If there is a God today, then... Read more

[caption id="attachment_75199" align="aligncenter" width="690"] (Credit: Photo by Michael Stulman/Catholic Relief Services.)[/caption] Rather famously, in 2009 the late atheist pundit Christopher Hitchens and actor Stephen Fry squared off against British MP Ann Widdecombe and then-Archbishop, now... Read more

  From the outside, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tolentino, a town of about 20,000 people in central Italy, still looks like an ordinary Catholic church. On the inside right now, however, it more closely resembles a homeless shelter, because that’s exactly what it’s... Read more

Because Pope Francis isn’t using the traditional papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, and apparently has no plans ever to do so, beginning today the Vatican has flung open its doors to the public, turning it into a museum and, at the same time, giving a badly needed shot in the arm to... Read more

[caption id="attachment_71603" align="aligncenter" width="575"] (Image: us.fotolia.com/stokkete)[/caption] From the Church’s earliest beginnings, Christians have sought to make this world a better place. Whether through thinking about how to order the political realm more justly or by serving the... Read more

[caption id="attachment_71600" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Pope John XXIII leads the opening session of the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Oct. 11, 1962. A total of 2,540 cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops and bishops from around the world attended the opening... Read more

Julia Greeley was a familiar sight on the streets of Denver in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Wearing a floppy hat, oversized shoes, and dabbing her bad eye with a handkerchief, Greeley was often seen pulling her red wagon of goods to deliver to the poor and homeless of the city. She had a... Read more

American universities used to be a place where difficult ideas were encountered and built in biases challenged. The universities, an inspiration from the Catholic Church, were the home of diverse ideas that were meant to inspire wisdom in students in addition to the learning of practical skills... Read more

[caption id="attachment_69906" align="aligncenter" width="680"] Credit: drpnncpptak via Shutterstock[/caption] Martin Pistorius was a healthy 12-year-old boy living in South Africa with his family in the late 1980s when he was overcome with a mysterious illness. The doctors weren't sure what... Read more