(OPINION) Marx saw religion as a top-down sedative administered by elites to dull the pain of feudalism. History offers a different perspective.
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(ANALYSIS) For New York, 25 years is enough time for a new generation to grow up knowing of the attacks only as history. It is enough time for neighborhoods to change, buildings to rise, children to become parents and memories to begin to fade around the edges.
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(ANALYSIS) After watching Christopher Nolan's take on “The Odyssey,” Father Dwight Longenecker remembered a comment Steven Spielberg made in a commentary while discussing how viewers react to symbolism. The director was responding to comments that crosses in the “Saving Private Ryan” cemetery scenes suggested the hero was a Christ figure who suffered to save a lost soul.
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In times of unrest, our impulse is to seek solutions in painfully precise increments. But what if the only way to bring lasting change is to shoot for the stars?
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The Chicago White Sox gave away 40,000 miter-shaped hats Tuesday in honor of the team’s most famous fan, Pope Leo XIV. Here are five interesting facts to know about “Pope Night.”
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(ANALYSIS) In her student days, Ann Widdecombe's first Oxford Union presentation was an attack on censorship, even if practicing free speech turned out to be risky or painful. A half-century later, the former Conservative MP and outspoken Catholic returned to the legendary debate club to address the same subject, at one point explaining why she once agreed to share a speaker's platform with an Irish Republican Army activist.
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The new prime minister will almost certainly have a short political honeymoon. How will he handle his first public meeting with Pope Leo XIV? In terms of symbolism, will he seek a blessing?
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Brazil’s World Cup elimination has fueled a national debate over whether the country’s rapid growth in evangelical Christianity has altered its soccer culture. While critics reject any link, the discussion reflects broader questions about Brazil’s changing identity, faith and the future of its once-dominant national team.
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The Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home was back in court defending its federally approved exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate in a case dating to 2013 and involving three Supreme Court victories. The ministry in Pittsburgh last won its case before the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2020, when the justices said the Department of Health and Human Services acted lawfully when it granted exemptions to the contraceptive mandate to employers with religious and conscientious objections.
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UFC star Conor McGregor says he is living a Christian life after embarking on a spiritual journey that has left him feeling “saved” and “healed.” McGregor has said his renewed faith has reignited his competitive drive and inspired him to leave a legacy others can learn from. McGregor, now 37, prepares to fight again with a renewed sense of himself.
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In May 2024, a Catholic parish in Kiambu County, near the Kenyan capital Nairobi, made national headlines when it allowed a polygamous man to marry one of his wives in a church ceremony. The marriage ceremony happened while the other wife sat in the pews. The church agreed that Ndachu had to write a will dividing his estate equitably between both families.
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(ANALYSIS) In the end, Vance is a work in progress — as all Christians ought to be. The Veep never quite reconciled with his father before he died. But there’s a “second chance” with his long-troubled mother, now substance-free and happily part of the family circle doting on her grandkids.
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(ANALYSIS) Whether cities or villages, many communities across Europe spend the day and night of June 24 celebrating Midsummer. Congregating around bonfires, or sometimes maypoles, sporting handwoven wreaths of wildflowers or oak leaves, they’ll sing, jump, dance, eat, drink, catch up and celebrate the arrival of the longest day of the year.
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(ANALYSIS) Ten years after “Hillbilly Elegy” catapulted its author into public view, JD Vance is publishing a new memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.” The vice president explains the book as a sort of self-help guide for the spiritually lost: “… by sharing my journey I might be helpful to others — Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise — who are seeking reconciliation with God.”
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A low-budget movie, cheesy horror that is literally just “The Exorcist” meets “Speed” and whose theology is as thin as a communion wafer. In theory, this can be an opportunity for an actually really fun campy horror experience. Unfortunately, it’s far more interested in stale religious deconstruction than it is in classic scares.
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(ANALYSIS) G.K. Chesterton blended humor and philosophy; he turned belief into something wondrous, culturally alive, and fiercely imaginative. The man made God fun. That sounds like a modest achievement until you consider how desperately the task still needs doing, and how spectacularly everyone since has failed at it.
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Who is AI for and who is it leaving behind? Those were the central questions of Pope Leo’s first encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”). By addressing the challenge and comparing it to the Industrial Revolution, the pope positioned the Catholic Church not as a casual observer of the tech age change, but an active participant in shaping its future.
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The Ugandan government has announced the postponement of this year’s Uganda Martyrs’ Day celebrations, scheduled for June 3, in response to an Ebola outbreak affecting both Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has claimed over 130 lives thus far.
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(ANALYSIS) The general admonition is the same in many faith communities: Try to marry someone who shares your faith background. That’s certainly a well-established norm in Jewish communities.
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The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not reconsider its landmark 1990 religious freedom decision that lower courts cited in a Colorado dispute over Catholic preschools and LGBTQ families, but it will hear arguments over how that ruling applies in the case.
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