A lot of American Catholics might not see the importance of Pope Francis’ declaration that women can take part in the formal ministries of acolyte and lector. After all, there have been “altar girls” in many American parishes for years.

But “many” is not “all.” Some parishes and dioceses allow only boys to assist the priest at the...Read more

SEATTLE — Their ranks include ex-federal prosecutors, a retired judge, a one-time assistant police chief, even a former priest. But a group of prominent Catholics say they still can’t get an audience with Seattle’s new archbishop in their push to address the fallout of a lingering scandal.

Members of Heal Our Church, a Seattle-based ...Read more

COVID-19 made 2020 an incredibly hard year for Americans. Governors and mayors made it worse by shrinking religious freedom.

It didn’t have to be this way. Most Americans have shown that they’re willing to take sensible precautions. But some of those in leadership positions have overreacted, to put it mildly. As Supreme Court Justice Samuel...Read more

Christmas 2020 was a Christmas like no other in our nation’s history. Thousands of churches across the country were shuttered, others had to hold services outdoors or restrict capacity indoors. Families were not allowed to gather for the holiday.

Many Americans are rightly upset that the freedom to worship — the foundational American ...Read more

ATLANTA — Less than a year after his death, the Alpharetta-based organization founded by Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has released a statement confirming allegations of sexual misconduct made against the influential spiritual leader.

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, most commonly known as RZIM, said in a Dec. 23 statement from ...Read more

Right in the middle of my teaching session, something caught my eye.

Glancing through the shutters from a window in our compound, I saw a caravan of nomads, a dozen or more with camels, making their way across the valley.

Situated on the fringe of the Sahara Desert, Wadi Natrun had become a training base for a few dozen young men and women ...Read more

According to the Bible, Jesus' birth was a crowded affair — Mary and Joseph, a menagerie of animals and some shepherd visitors. But protesters?

Claremont United Methodist Church, in keeping with its tradition of eye-catching Nativity scenes, situated the Holy Family this year in front of a painting of masked people holding signs reading "I ...Read more

Every day, Brother Dennis Gibbs sits by a window in the living room of his monastery in the San Gabriel Valley and pens a letter or two to people behind bars.

His "friends on the inside," as the gray-haired monk calls them, have kept up a growing correspondence with Gibbs for more than nine months, sharing an intimate view into life in jails ...Read more

FRESNO, Calif. – For the past four months, Pastor Rici Skei has been welcoming nearly a dozen students into her Lowell neighborhood church for what some have been missing since the pandemic shut down schools in March — mentorship, meals, and socialization.

Skei has been a Lowell resident for 14 years, finding ways to lift the historic ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Former Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said late last week that President-elect Joe Biden should be banned from receiving Communion because of his support for abortion rights, fueling an ongoing debate among Catholic leaders in the United States over how to relate to the nation's second Catholic president.

Chaput, who ...Read more

Wilma Mayfield used to visit a senior center in Durham, North Carolina, four days a week and attend Lincoln Memorial Baptist Church on Sundays, a ritual she's maintained for nearly half a century. But over the past 10 months, she's seen only the inside of her home, the grocery store and the pharmacy. Most of her days are spent worrying about ...Read more

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's sharply divided ruling blocking New York's COVID-19 restrictions on in-person worship has bolstered the prospects of already-successful religious legal advocates while making their adversaries fear for their future at the high court.

In its most significant public action since Justice Amy Coney Barrett ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Few of his parishioners were surprised when Washington, D.C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory took on President Donald Trump.

Gregory isn't known to speak out often about issues specifically facing Black Americans. But when he does, it is unambiguous and forceful — in words unusually strong for a man of the cloth.

In June, racial ...Read more

DETROIT — The head of the Catholic Church in Detroit has been chosen to lead a new national group that seeks to guide how Catholics should respond to President-elect Joe Biden and the contentious issue of abortion.

Archbishop Allen Vigneron, who leads the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, was named this week the president of the United States ...Read more

It's early morning. The sun is just peeking onto the backyard or the park or the trail or the balcony. The pale rays brighten and verify colors from their muted-grey overnight rest. Then it catches your eye — strand after carefully placed strand shimmering in stunning dewy array of iridescent nano-pearls.

You are gazing upon your basic, ...Read more

The McCarrick Report investigating sexual abuse by disgraced former Washington, D.C., cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, released this month by the Vatican, catalogs facts that cannot be ignored, denied or explained away. The harm inflicted by McCarrick over decades is a source of deep remorse and shame for the Catholic Church. Like most, I am ...Read more

When my thoughts and feelings are in turmoil, I go up the local mountain to find inner peace.

I go up the mountain (really just a big hill) where a sense of freedom and spaciousness helps me sort out problems, soothe hurts, and feel a few hundred feet closer to God. Going up a mountain to pray is part of the spiritual history of my Christian ...Read more