As a noun, cloister means a covered walk in a convent with a wall on one side and a colonnade open on the other. As a verb, it means to go into seclusion. The connection between a monastery — during Lent no less — and self-isolation makes a place like The Met Cloisters in New York more relevant than ever.
Read More(OPINION) With proper precautions, religious traditions can and have continued. For priests, a pandemic is not only an impediment to their duties but is central to their calling.
Read MoreItaly’s lockdown to contain the coronavirus interrupted a Raphael show of more than 100 of the artist’s paintings and drawings. The exhibit ironically marks the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death by fever at the age of 37. A private tour of the Vatican Museum last week gave one of the last peeks into the now-closed Rafael show, among other treasures of the art world in Vatican City.
Read More(REVIEW) Best-selling author and NY Times op-ed contributor Timothy Egan lets us tag along on his journey from Canterbury to Rome in his latest book, A Pilgrimage to Eternity. He’s on his camino – the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage of over a thousand miles beginning from the English world’s oldest church and ending at St. Peter’s Square.
Read More(OPINION) Here’s a fact: Pope Francis, a day after shaking hands with the faithful on Ash Wednesday, did not get coronavirus, something the Vatican later confirmed. That didn’t stop some news outlets from speculating on whether the pope had been infected by the deadly virus.
Read More(OPINION) Pope Francis — a week after the dust settled from his decision not to create an Amazonian rite that would have allowed married men to serve as priests and women as deacons — continues to garner news coverage as Catholic progressives and traditionalists debate what it all means.
Read More(OPINION) Traditional expressions of Christianity are decreasing all over Europe, although Christian identity is stronger for reasons not related to church doctrine or theology.
Read MoreHundreds of thousands of believers in the tiny Balkan country have been protesting a new law that would allow the government to take possession of property from the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Read MoreThe chocolates resemble the pilgrimage site in Lourdes, France where St. Bernadette is believed to have first seen the Virgin Mary on this day 162 years ago.
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) At the launch on Wednesday, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed the ever-growing need to combat the increasing violence based on religion or belief, including “terrorists and violent extremists who target religious minorities, whether they are Yazidis in Iraq, Hindus in Pakistan, Christians in northeast Nigeria, or Muslims in Burma” and “the Chinese Communist Party’s hostility to all faiths.”
Read More(OPINION) Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks urged religious and political leaders to understand how current trends feed the scapegoating of a people who have endured persecution throughout history.
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) The conviction in the UK of a gay serial rapist from Indonesia is fueling debates in the Muslim-majority country of whether rape is a symptom of homosexuality. While homosexuality is not a crime in Indonesia, the largest Muslim organizations have been advocating to criminalize gay sexual activities.
Read More(OPINION) Social media is forcing a global reckoning over disinformation. Narratives that deny or distort Holocaust history represent some of the gravest consequences of allowing “alternative history” to take root.
Read More(OPINION) There’s an ongoing debate between historians. Can civilizations be restored? Or do they invariably die? Oswald Spengler, a German historian, said all civilizations are born, grow, and then age, decline and die. No exceptions. Arnold Toynbee disagreed. Civilizations have a spiritual dimension. They can be restored. But only a creative minority can do it.
Read MoreBefore it was a place of horror and destruction, Auschwitz was a town where Catholics and Jews lived together in harmony.
Read More(OPINION) This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day aims to reflect the “continued importance of collective action against antisemitism and other forms of bias to ensure respect for the dignity and human rights of all people everywhere.”
Read More(REVIEW) Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the film Holy Silence focuses on the pontificate of Pius XII and whether the pope did enough to help Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II.
Read More(OPINION) Walking part of a medieval pilgrimage route alone along the northern coast of Spain taught me self-sufficiency and how to be fully present.
Read More(REVIEW) There is a Hollywood fascination with all that’s morbid about religion. It has traditionally had a profane approach when it comes to the Catholic church. That it loves to dramatize reality into what can sometimes be an ugly trope, this is exactly what we get with HBO’s new TV mini-series.
Read More(OPINION) Arguments got heated and continued at a slow burn. One commentator even wrote to the Vatican requesting information about a ceremonial plant in a bowl.
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