We have some real, live news coming out of the Vatican conference that is focusing on clergy sexual abuse of “children,” and maybe a few other kinds of victims. It’s big news. But one or two of the most important facts in this story are still missing. Looking at the coverage, it would appear that these holes are probably not the result of bad or shallow reporting...

“The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.” With these words of the Lord, stalwart Catholics have sought to dissuade brothers and sisters alienated by the sex abuse scandals from exiting the fold. While it is good to be reminded that insolvency is not the church’s destiny, such words alone will not assuage today’s disillusioned laity...

The Academy Awards telecast is Sunday night, February 24th, and once again a tiny but powerful segment of our culture nervously fantasizes about a potential life changing moment when they can hold a little gold dude with a sword. Some in that auditorium might say that a patriarchal, sexist, paganesque statue wearing swim trunks and holding a weapon of mass destruction is triggering...

The other day at Thomas More College I had an experience I’d never had, in my thirty-four years of teaching college students. I had stayed in the room after class, chatting with several of the students, who didn’t have to get anywhere fast, because the class was over at 11:00 and Mass wouldn’t begin until 11:30. One of the students...

Synods and other Vatican gabfests used to be quite placid – even boring – affairs. St. John Paul II, before becoming pope, is reported to have worked on one of his books during some such event – and slept at another during his pontificate. One cannot help but yearn wistfully, at times, for the days of such dusty and distant events when every Vatican meeting now seems to bring up the deep tensions within the Church...

For Tim Caro, it was surprisingly easy to dress horses like zebras. Several vendors were already selling coats with black-and-white stripes, often as fun gimmicks. But, as Caro learned, such coverings have an unexpectedly serious effect. “There are enormous benefits to having a striped coat for a horse,” he told me.

It was after midnight at the Vatican when Father Thomas Rosica called back. He had a lot going on. As the Vatican’s long serving senior English-language spokesperson, he was at the landmark papal summit on youth protection, working 18-hour days conveying the church’s message to the world, through the media. This feverish pace is typical of the high-powered circles in which Rosica operates as a major figure in Catholic education and public life in Canada...

Allegations that Fr. Thomas Rosica has engaged in serial plagiarism for more than a decade come as a shock. The Canadian priest is the CEO of Salt and Light, a Catholic media outlet based in Toronto, a widely published writer and a former university president who currently sits on the boards of several institutions of higher learning...

When the eremitic monk and reformer Peter Damian cast his critical gaze upon the Catholic Church of the mid-eleventh century, he encountered a panorama of corruption that would have appeared daunting even to the most hardened observer of the modern ecclesiastical scene. The “household of God” was in a catastrophic state of moral disorder...

I've worked with adults young and old for over twenty years in faith formation. I’ve seen the steps in this list below repeated time and time again with great success. If creating an atheist child is your goal as a Catholic parent, this list is for you. First, emphasize that being a Catholic is just about following rules and avoiding sin Whatever you do...

I find it very fitting, and one could argue that’s it’s providential, that the memorial of Saint Peter Damian is falling on the first day of the Vatican’s Sex Abuse Summit. Known as the “Monitor of the Popes,” St. Peter Damian was given the authority to oversee papal households and to govern Church business. If there was ever a saint’s intercession that we needed this week...

Today, as the abuse summit begins at the Vatican, Avvenire, the magazine of the Italian bishops' conference, features an interview with me in honor of the Italian publication of my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Here is the interview in its original English; the questions are from Avvenire reporter Andrea Galli...

The Vatican’s abuse summit this week will not solve the problems plaguing the Catholic Church in the U.S. In fact, it doesn’t aim to. The summit was called by Pope Francis in September, shortly after he was accused of ignoring reports about the predatory behavior of disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. But from the beginning...

Famous actor Tom Hanks visited the Orthodox church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Antarctica at the Russian polar station “Bellingshausen” on Waterloo Island, Deacon Maxim Gerb, a cleric of the church in Antarctica, told the journal Foma. “Many interesting people visit our church, including Tom Hanks who was recently sailing past our island on a yacht...

Nigerian solidiers, fighting the Islamic beasts of Boko Haram, adore the Blessed Sacrament in Zambiza forest. They seem to know you have to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament. They even found a thurible. There’s more reverence in the African bush than in most cathedrals of the West. As the “summit” opens in Rome.

The Popemobile isn't the only innovative piece of gear used by the Pope and his posse. Though they still look traditional, the outfits worn by the Swiss Guard now include a high-tech piece of headwear designed by the 3D-printing design team at HP, Fast Company reports.

Though raised Catholic, John Knutsen didn’t really believe in God, and when his brother died of AIDS, he decided he was done with religion forever. A few years later, during a personal crisis, he found an unexpected friend in a retired priest, who listened patiently to John’s frustrations. And after a rainy night when John found himself weeping in an empty church...

Pope Francis on Thursday gave participants in a Vatican summit on protection of minors in the Church a list of nearly two dozen discussion points for actions Catholic Church leaders could potentially take in the follow-up to the meeting. The Pope said during opening remarks Feb. 21 that the criteria were formulated by various bishops’ conferences and organized by him into the list...

When Paul Schrader finally reached for the tools of the transcendental toolkit in a theologically and existentially fraught film starring Ethan Hawke as a tortured pastor, it’s not surprising that the resulting film would rate high among cinephiles of faith, including the circle of friends and peers I survey each year as a cross-section of film appreciation among Christians...

EWTN is offering full coverage of the meeting, from Thursday’s opening prayer to the closing Mass on Sunday...