Following the listening phase of the Synod on Synodality, a mix of religious, clergy and lay people gathered in Frascati, Italy, to synthesize reports from around the world. Austen Ivereigh took part and gives this insider’s account.

A Reflection for Thursday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time, by Colleen Dulle

We neither chose nor fashioned the wounded and scary worlds in which we live. And this is the meaning of the sin which the Catholic Church calls “original.” We ourselves are wounded before we ever set out to reject or to wound.

I have covered this growing pessimism about our political system in previous columns, but the evidence keeps coming.

A threatened strike by freight rail workers is not about wages but about the right to take time off for a doctor’s appointment or to care for a sick child. Catholic social teaching supports this right for all workers.

Under the agreement, filed Oct. 25 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the diocese is required to implement enhanced child protection measures.

“We must not remain defeated by a moment of sadness,” Pope Francis said in his Wednesday general audience about desolation, continuing his discussion of discernment.

A Reflection for Wednesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time, by Kerry Weber

“If Catholic schools were a state, they’d be the highest performing in the nation on all four N.A.E.P. tests,” Kathleen Porter-Magee, the superintendent of Partnership Schools, pointed out on Twitter.

A Reflection for Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time, by Tim Reidy

It is clear that most people think using Jesus’ name to express anger is acceptable. But this should not only be off-limits, it should be confronted as anti-Christian.

From Edgar Allan Poe to Dean Koontz to Flannery O'Connor, America's editors and contributors are not (always) afraid of some horror.

“The plea for peace cannot be suppressed,” Pope Francis said today. “It rises from the hearts of mothers; it is deeply etched on the faces of refugees, displaced families, the wounded and the dying.”

This week on “The Gloria Purvis Podcast,” Gloria speaks with Dr. Amanda Joy Calhoun about the deep vestiges of racism in our medical institutions and the strategies she is using to challenge them in her own practice.

How are negotiations possible, Father Andriy Zelinskyy asked, when the Russian opening position is: “Either you do what we want or we kill you.”

A new true-crime documentary series on Netflix, “Vatican Girl,” tells the story of the 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old girl who is still the only Vatican citizen considered missing.

The “Doctrine of Discovery” is the leveraging of the idea of discovery to argue for and put into law a claim on and right to indigenous lands. It has no current and actively sustained legal connection.

Many dioceses are still without bishops or have very elderly bishops, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, but the process is continuing.

A Reflection for Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time, by Kevin Jackson

For 25 years the Ignatian Family Teach-In has brought Jesuit educated young people together to learn more about the history of U.S. involvement in Central America and how Jesuit values can help them understand contemporary demands of social justice.