For many Catholics, the word missionary brings to mind a centuries-old image of a priest planting a cross in a foreign land and teaching, baptizing and celebrating Mass for its people. Or it may conjure up the slightly more modern image of women religious running a school in Africa or Latin America.
Features
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Good News From Judas? Behind the newly popular gnostic text “The Gospel of Judas”
A New Testament Scholar demystifies the newly popular Gnostic text.
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Spy Wednesday: Who was Judas and why did he do it?
Saints and theologians, not to mention authors and poets, have long debated this thorny question: Why did Judas do it? To answer that we need to know something about the man himself.
Posted inArts & Culture, Features
Dialogue and Democracy
The Catholic Church is not, as many old hands in the Vatican are quick to say, a democracy. But that quick judgment may arise in part because those old hands have not sufficiently come to terms with modern democracy itself. The chapter titled Political Community in the Vatican’s recently publi
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Who was St. John of the Cross?
There are so many mistaken notions about St. John of the Cross (1542-91) that we might do well to clarify some of them.
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Five Years with Dorothy Day
I had planned to stay a few months, but was pretty quickly hooked and remained for five years – the last five years of Dorothy’s life, as it turned out.
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He Held These Truths
John Courtney Murray is the most significant Catholic theologian the church in the United States has ever produced.
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Should politicians be refused communion?
When Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, was asked at a press conference in Rome on April 23 whether Senator John F. Kerry should be denied Communion, he responded: “The law of the church is clear. The church exists in the United
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Rights of accused priests: Toward a revision of the Dallas charter and the essential norms
The church must protect the community from harm, but it must also protect the human rights of each individual who may face an accusation.
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The Vanishing Eucharist
By now it is clear to anyone interested in the Catholic Church that there are no longer enough priests to celebrate Mass in many parishes.