Pope Francis marked the feast of the Holy Trinity stressing the personal love and interest God has in each one of his children, saying the Lord is not ever far away, but is an attentive and loving Father to all. “God does not want so much to reveal to us that he exists, but rather that he is the 'God with us,' that he loves us...

Costco is a wholesale retail store known for its great bargains. It offers food samples, cheap gas, and sale items to attract customers and make their shopping experiences worthwhile. But strategies like these also encourage customers to stay longer and spend more.

A fundamental tenet of the Christian faith is the belief in a Trinitarian God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and of Christian life. God alone can make it known to us by revealing himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” While Christianity didn’t come into existence until the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost...

There’s no such thing as a slow news day in the Pope Francis era, and Saturday brought triumphant proof of the point. Three things happened, all with important Catholic consequences - two initiated by the pontiff himself, and one that came crashing in on him from the outside. Francis named Cardinal-designate Giovanni Becciu, who’s served since 2011 as the “substitute...

C.S. Lewis once observed that we don’t need more Christian books, we need more Christian writers. In other words, people of faith who have the gift should write not just worthy books on prayer. They should write novels and children’s stories and cookbooks and travel books, fantasy, fiction, poetry, and drama. His point was that for Christianity to be real it has to be diffused into the culture in a realistic and practical way...

The vote to allow abortion in Ireland has revealed what we already knew–that Ireland’s Catholic faith has eroded, and the once great and powerful Irish church has become a husk of what it once was. I am no expert on Ireland, Irish history or the Irish church, but I expect the malaise has the same roots at the decline of the institutional church not only in the other European countries...

This September, Pope Francis is due to visit Ireland almost exactly 39 years after the first reigning pontiff set foot on Irish soil. The current Holy Father would, however, be visiting a country greatly changed from the one to which his predecessor came. The reception Pope St. John Paul II received was what one would expect from a Catholic nation...

In 1963 and 1964, at the height of the Cold War, tensions were high between the United States and the Soviet Union, as both nations stockpiled tens of thousands of nuclear devices. Both countries had signed a treaty to stop testing nuclear devices on the surface or underwater, but the treaty did not cover underground tests. Scientists didn't know if underground tests could reliably be detected by seismographs...

At some point we wind up taking a stab at explaining the Trinity to someone. Results vary. Today, to get at the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, let’s use the final prayer at Holy Mass in the venerable, traditional form of the Roman Rite as a crowbar. Here is the Postcommunio of the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity in the 1962MR...

On the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity we do well to remember that we are pondering a mystery that cannot fit in our minds. A mystery, though, is not something wholly unknown. In the Christian tradition, the word “mystery” refers to (among other things) something that is partially revealed, something much more of which remains hidden...

Early results on Saturday morning are projecting the repeal of the abortion ban in Ireland, a decision pro-life groups are calling tragic and disappointing. Exit polls by the RTÉ are projecting 69.4 percent of citizens voted on May 25 against keeping the Eighth Amendment, which recognizes the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn child...

In this episode of Catholic Answers Live (May 25, 2018, 2nd hour), Jimmy answers the following questions: Why do we associate good with “up” and down with “bad”? Why do some Medieval religious paintings look like they have spacemen and UFOs in them? Could a priest or the pope bless an entire ocean and make it holy water...

Catholic Ireland saved civilization from extinction in the dark ages, produced copious missionaries and saints. But that is no more. It didn’t die a great battle but in a whimper. Years of English persecutions could not break Catholic Ireland, but in a much shorter time of apathy has more or less extinguished the faith. This nation had 87% weekly Mass attendance when I was a boy but today voted 2:1 to legalize abortion...

At some point in every woman’s life one desires the advice of someone older and wiser; to provide counsel about how to manage each day, negotiate odd predicaments or navigate pitfalls. There is a long Catholic tradition of selecting a saint to guide us through a year. Sometimes we pick the saint, or sometimes it seems like the saint picks us...

Many great meats start with a great spice rub. While you can buy any number of blends from the store, why not try your hand at creating your own? There’s no better place to get started with creating your own spice blends than with DIY BBQ rubs. Whether you’ll be massaging it into ribs or pork butt or brisket, BBQ rub has a number of uses and can enhance many of your summer-grilling favorites...

The cacophony that accompanies every upsurge in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can make it seem impossible for outsiders to sort out the facts. Recent events in Gaza are no exception. The shrillest voices on each side are already offering their own mutually exclusive narratives that acknowledge some realities while scrupulously avoiding others...

Holy Communion is exclusively for Catholics in a state of grace and not something to be shared between friends like beer or cake, said a former senior adviser to two popes. Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze said any moves to give greater access to Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics and to non-Catholic spouses of Catholics represented “serious” challenges to the teaching of the Church on the Eucharist...

What’s with the vestimentary and liturgical stinginess when it comes to deacons? Deacons are clerics, but NO! they can’t wear clerical clothing unless its gray or in some other way altered. Deacons are liturgical ministers, ordained for service at the altar, but NO! they can’t put on their proper vestments. This is absurd...

No sooner had I spotted one hopeful sign in the Pope’s handling of the Chilean sex-abuse scandal when today’s news brought another. Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Church’s policy barring active homosexuals from seminaries. I know; I know. This concern about homosexual influence contrasts quite sharply with the Holy Father’s reported advice to a gay Chilean abuse victim to “be happy with who you are...

On July 4, 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter traveling at a blistering 130,000 mph. Its mission — to orbit the gas giant closer than any craft had done before — was not easy. Like Earth, Jupiter is surrounded by a field of magnetic radiation. But Jupiter’s is much, much stronger. If Juno didn’t hit a precise region at the poles where the magnetic field is the weakest in its entry...