Pope Francis had hoped his trip to Kazakhstan this week would offer a chance to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church—who has justified the war in Ukraine—and plead for peace.

“We can speak lightly and, perhaps, skeptically about the grace of office,” writes British Jesuit Father James Hanvey. “In Queen Elizabeth, we saw that grace working.”

Indigenous groups have pressured Catholic leaders to denounce a series of papal bulls dating back to the 15th century that granted the monarchs of Portugal and Spain the right to colonize non-Christian lands.

Kazakhstan, which Pope Francis will visit tomorrow, is largely an unknown country to many Catholics around the world. Here is a brief introduction to the country and its small Catholic community.

James Martin, S.J., offers a personal remembrance of John O'Malley, S.J. the dean of Catholic historians and a mentor to generations of Jesuits, priests, religious men and women and Catholic laypeople.

A gathering of 277 bishops, clergy, religious and lay people in Australia has just completed four years of consultations, discernment and drafting ideas at its second and final assembly. What did we learn from their efforts?

Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor who has volunteered as a reserve officer for the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, takes us behind the scenes of urban policing in her new book.

Here are 15 big Catholic stories you might have missed from the last three months.

“I asked her, ‘Auntie, you’re not leaving?’ and, after a moment of silence, she answered ‘I don’t know, I want to wait,” Comboni Sister Gabriella Bottani said of her aunt, Comboni Sister Maria De Coppi.

Pope Francis highlighted the late queen’s “example of devotion to duty, her steadfast witness of faith in Jesus Christ and her firm hope in his promises.”