“You may think you know my story,” says Mary, having galloped into the movie on horseback. “Trust me. You don’t.”

Over five years after Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burned, the faithful will celebrate its reopening as it returns for the second weekend of Advent.

Notre-Dame, and many churches in France, are owned by the state and merely used by the church. That gave the French government, and President Macron, a big voice in the restoration project.

In the language of Catholic social teaching, we might say that voters doubt whether the political system in which they participate sustains the common good.

A proposed assisted-suicide law in Britain does not serve compassion. Instead it presents an illusion of final autonomy.

“Joe Biden said one thing and did the opposite. A father’s love meant more to the president than keeping his word.”

The possibility of a “fourth order” of deaconess in the Catholic Church has become part of the conversation around women deacons. But is it the right response?

Quebec has played host to a number of cults and alternative religions over the years, from the Ant Hill Kids, the cruelly abused followers of Roch Thériault to the U.F.O. believers of the Raelian Church.

A Reflection for Friday of the First Week of Advent, by Kevin Christopher Robles