What exactly are we talking about when we talk about “the Latin Mass”?
Explainer
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Explainer: What kind of surgery did Pope Francis have?
Here’s a look at what we know about the operation and what the pope’s doctors will be watching out for.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Explainer: What does the church mean when it says a pro-choice Catholic politician is causing scandal?
“Scandal” is a word often heard used in recent months by U.S. bishops regarding the best ways to provide pastoral care and communicate authentic church teaching to pro-choice politicians who identify as Catholic.
Posted inExplainer, Politics & Society
Who will Joe Biden send to Rome? 8 top contenders for U.S. ambassador to the Vatican
If precedent is any indicator, whoever Biden names is likely to be a practicing Catholic who has either worked or volunteered with the Catholic Church — and who is an open supporter of the president.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Communion for the divorced and remarried, papal critics and family life: Pope Francis’ ‘Amoris Laetitia’ at 5 years
What is the legacy of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia,” released five years ago today?
Posted inExplainer, Faith
What Pope Francis has said about Covid-19 since his iconic Urbi et Orbi blessing one year ago
Pope Francis: “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”
Posted inExplainer, Faith
The 8 Most-Defining Images from 8 Years of Pope Francis
While much ink has been spilled by Vatican watchers interpreting how the pope’s writings and structural changes will shape the church for years to come, Pope Francis’ gestures may do even more to define his legacy.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Explainer: Cardinal Tobin will now help Pope Francis pick bishops. What does that mean for the U.S. Church?
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, named today to the influential Congregation for Bishops, has been known as a “Pope Francis bishop”—one who generally follows the pope’s lead in prioritizing social justice issues and dialogue over culture war flashpoints.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Explainer: Your bishop said it’s time to come back to church. Is it a sin if you don’t go?
Whenever dioceses choose to lift dispensations, like with other difficult pandemic-related decisions, individual believers will have to decide for themselves when they feel safe going back to church.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
Explainer: What is an annulment? (And why does Pope Francis want to make it easier to get one?)
No matter how many times you hear it described thus—jokingly or not—an annulment is not just “Catholic divorce.” Church teaching is not that the marriage in question failed, but that the marriage never existed in a sacramental sense.