What is the point of a pilgrimage? Where did this idea come from for Catholics? There is considerable evidence throughout Scripture, which supplies theological significance to the concept. Even today we see many embracing this activity with passion and the commitment of time and resources.

A member of a wealthy and respected Catholic family, with excellent contacts among America’s political and social elite, Archbishop Carroll proved notably adept at building bridges with the non-Catholic world in a career spanning more than three decades.

During this special time, we enter into the passion of Christ — his Crucifixion, death and Resurrection — through liturgical celebration and personal conversion.

The strange, Donatist parallelism between the SSPX leadership and the German Synodal Path illustrates what’s come to be called the “horseshoe effect:” in a moment of cultural turbulence, social fragmentation, and political dysfunction like our own, the extremes of left and right bend toward each other rather than occupying two ends of a linear spectrum.

Father Flanagan is an icon of the power of diaconal identity. It both shows us and makes effective now the power of Christ the Servant. Where Father Flanagan saw pain, he rushed in and embraced the child of God who suffered. When he saw injustice, he spoke out eloquently and forcefully called others to greater charity in Christ.

With respect to holy water in particular, St. Thomas Aquinas specifically identifies the “sprinkling of holy water” as a means for the remission of venial sin in question 87, article 3 of the “Third Part” of his work the “Summa Theologica.”

The Annunciation is the full-on proof of Augustine’s words: “God created us without us, but he will not save us without us.” Just as God’s own Word of assent was necessary for the creation and sustained expansion of the universe, Mary’s “yes” was necessary to its salvation.

I’m on a quest to attend 226 Masses during 2026. So, back at the end of January, I decided to try to go to Mass every day of February. February is the shortest month, so I thought maybe I would have a chance at hitting that goal. But going every day is a real challenge […]

The Church makes use of three holy oils: the oil of the sick, the oil of the catechumens and the holy chrism oil. The first two are blessed, and the bishop consecrates the third, ordinarily during the annual chrism Mass. Each has a distinctive purpose in the Church.

John Hughes reigned — the word fits his style — as Archbishop of New York from December 1842 until his death in January 1864. In that time he established himself in the eyes of his fellow Americans as a Catholic bishop unlike any they’d seen up to then.