John Paul liked scrambled eggs on bacon for breakfast. Benedict spent his free time playing the piano, reading, listening to classical music.

Francis has made it his business to try to build bridges with the Muslim world with the energy of a missionary. Benedict also delivered his message to Islam from afar.

The 460-page commemorative volume gathers just a slice of the kind of rigorous research still being done today "in the light of faith," and in the footsteps of a 90-year-old pope.

Some Catholics have abandoned philosophy as a central component of the church's discourse.

Deconstructionists, those intellectuals who make it their job to ask critical questions about our long-cherished collective stories, like to ask, among other things, who or what cause is best served by a given narrative. They might ask, for example, whose interests are served by a story that tells o