While the wisdom of Leo’s message on peace will be considered above all for its ramifications on international affairs, it can pertain to the church, too.

This is exactly what the best stories tell us. Who we are, whose we are, and what we are called to be. What a gift that we all share the best story: The hope that will ultimately bring us home.

It is tragic that this abandonment of theological sanity and pastoral responsibility coincides with the 60th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, in which German bishops and theologians (including the future Pope Benedict XVI) played significant roles.

While we should not expect to see women literally ordained alongside male diaconate candidates, the question of deaconesses in general is a complex and multifaceted one with many positive implications.

The Catholic reader of Jane Austen’s novels should find them to be dramas of conscience. Her heroines are women of thoughtfulness and integrity.

Whatever your memories are at Christmas, give them to God, who has them already, and treats them all with tenderness and mercy. God will help us do the same.

Slavery that was legal centuries ago is considered an abomination today. All the more reason not to categorize all situations regarding immigrants as either black or white. There are complicated areas in between, areas as gray as that early morn in Bethlehem when hope was born, giving way to a brighter dawn for all who tenaciously cling to hope for peace.  

Meg Hunter-Kilmer breaks open the meaning of the Scriptures in light of Christ as the fulfillment of all prophecies in her latest book, “Eyes Fixed on Jesus.”

In an era where we’re not producing the penny anymore, returning Old Bay to its original metal canister somehow feels reassuring.

The bishops speak in the public square on a host of issues, and they do so with the voice of public reason, not as “culture-warriors” (another silly epithet applied to them by bears of little brain).