On this week’s podcast, W. Tyler Allen speaks about his book, which celebrates God’s ability to use the miraculous, the bizarre — and even the downright creepy to connect with his people.
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(REVIEW) Oasis, the Manchester-born rock n’ roll band who defined the 1990s pop scene, were broken up between 2009 and 2024, when they finally announced a reunion tour for 2025. In “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” a newly-released documentary film accompanying last-year’s tour, one fan says the band’s reunion was “like the rebirth of Christ.”
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AI has made us question our very humanity — giving us concerns about our intelligence, our work, our relationships, and even our religion. That’s why on today’s episode Matthew Peterson has a conversation with Loyola Professor Joseph Vukov about his book, “Staying Human In an Era of Artificial Intelligence.”
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What role should Comedy play in the life of a Christian? What kinds of joking does God make off limits? And, does God like joking around as much as we do? On this week’s podcast, I spoke with a witty Catholic philosopher and a pastor who moonlights as a comedian to find out.
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(ESSAY) As an anthropologist who studies social bonding during times of crisis, I now understand how cultural religious traditions — even when they seem different — can create unexpected connections. Many years after my military service, during the final days of my father’s life, my large family kept vigil beside him. Sitting with my siblings, mother and dozens of nieces and nephews, I told them this story.
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Five years after the pandemic upended life across the United States, a new national study shows that many churches are stabilizing — and in some cases rebounding — even as many challenges persist. In a report by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, which surveyed more than 80 denominations, found that most have either maintained or increased their level of engagement.
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(REVIEW) In the last eighteen months, two Christian publishers have released books reimagining C.S. Lewis’s classic ‘The Screwtape Letters’ as concerning the temptation not of a man, but of a woman. The authors are at their best when they take the Lewisian approach, considering women not just as females, but as humans.
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When other boys his age were trading Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards, Eric Lavin was collecting saints’ relics. In seventh grade, Lavin began writing to other dioceses to request relics, and now, more than 16 years later, Lavin has grown one New Jersey church’s collection from 20 to more than 600 relics.
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Ignoring pleas from animal rights advocates to denounce bullfighting and its close ties with Spanish Catholicism, Pope Leo XIV is aligning himself with Spain’s bishops, who remain hesitant to condemn the cruelty of the popular bloodsport. Animal rights groups see a red flag, arguing that the practice, which dates back centuries, is barbaric.
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(ANALYSIS) Many factors can shape how someone views abortion – gender, age and education, to name a few. Around the world, however, religious belief is the most powerful predictor that someone will disapprove, as I document in my 2025 book, “Fetal Positions.” Faith traditions’ teachings about abortion vary — and there is diversity of opinions within faiths, too.
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(ANALYSIS) While Stephen Colbert retains a faithful congregation, some fans who loved his sly blend of satire and progressive Catholicism mourn his decision to preach to only half of America, said media scholar Terry Lindvall, author of "God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert,” published in 2015.
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Your view of the health of American Christian congregations and of their clergy may very much depends on the angle taken: Up from the orchestra or looking down from the balcony. One thing seems evident: In a country in which Christian affiliation has declined (though there are signs it has stabilized) many Catholic and Protestant clergy face significant challenges.
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(ANALYSIS) The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Oklahoma can open St. Isidore: an online Roman Catholic charter school named after the patron saint of the internet. If affirmed, the school would be the nation’s first faith-based charter — a sea change in education law, expanding the boundaries of government aid to faith-based schools.
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Nick Saban — who adopted two children, Nicholas and Kristen, with his wife, Terry, and “adopted” hundreds more as a coach — drew a sellout crowd to Faulkner University’s annual benefit dinner, which celebrated heroes of adoption and foster care. Saban, a college football legend, retired from coaching and now works as a TV analyst for ESPN's “College GameDay,”
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A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is leaving the Wall Street Journal for the National Catholic Reporter. Why this is a surprise — and why it's not.
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(ANALYSIS) The son of an Italian father and a Black mother, Mazzulla is an outspoken Catholic whose pregame routine includes pacing through an empty arena, praying with a rosary made with wood from the court of the original Boston Garden. While his faith has drawn many cheers across social media, it also attracted some criticism.
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(ANALYSIS) The team's star placekicker stressed that “being Catholic alone doesn't cut it” while attacking many famous Catholics, including President Joe Biden, for, among other choices, making the sign of the cross during a Florida abortion rights rally. Butker spent most of his address criticizing many American bishops while also offering blunt defenses of Catholic teachings on sexuality.
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“Immaculate” and “The First Omen” are two horror movies with pregnant nun protagonists in theaters at the same time. It’s admittedly an unusual event. They’re also a veiled response to the overturning of abortion nearly two years ago and the Catholic church’s stance on the issue.
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Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark is a lot of things to many people. To fans, she’s known for breaking NCAA records. To her teammates, she’s the one they are looking at to spearhead a national title run after getting Iowa to the Final Four. And to those in the sports marketing business, she’s a budding star who will be playing in the WNBA next season. She’s also Catholic.
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(TRAVEL) Sitting snugly at the start of the escarpment taking visitors up from the floor of the Great Rift Valley, not far from Kenya’s capitol Nairobi, is Mai Mahiu Catholic Church, otherwise known as the “Travelers’ Chapel.” Older generations call the place as “Msikiti,” which means mosque. One of Africa’s smallest churches, in fact, dates back to World War II when it was built by Italian prisoners of war.
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