Zoom into a Young Star Cluster in a Galaxy 200,000 Light-Years From Earth...
Modern Martyrs of Poland, Pray for Us...
Two reasons Pope St. John Paul II accelerated the canonization process were to highlight two truths: that sanctity is “always in season” and not just something from times long ago, and that there are martyrs for the faith today, not just in the Colosseum and Roman Empire. The choice to live according to God’s will — or not — is one in every time and season.
When It Comes to Comparisons With Father Rupnik, Think Cosby, not Caravaggio...
In June 2024, the head of the Vatican communications department, Paolo Ruffini, vigorously defended his office’s continued use of the artwork of Father Marko Rupnik on the Vatican website. He argued that it was premature to judge Father Rupnik’s guilt regarding the many charges of sexual abuse of consecrated women he faces, and that “removing, deleting, destroying art ... is not a Christian response.”
Yes, It’s Our War, Too...
In late May, Trump administration officials at the highest level, frustrated by what they regard as Vladimir Putin’s incomprehensible obstreperousness over his war on Ukraine, suggested that their patience was running out, after which the United States — which has not approved further military supplies for Ukraine in months — would leave the combatants to their own devices. “It’s not our war,” was the mantra of the day...
6 Uncomfortable Facts About Divorce...
Catholics are against divorce in theory, but not in practice. That sad truth has led to countless Catholic marriages and families shattered, causing a ripple effect of destruction through generations. Perhaps we find ourselves in this unhappy reality because we have not heard the following six things from the pulpit or the Catholic community for many long decades. Do you know these truths?
Doing Dishes and Great Music...
For many of us it is hard to find time to listen to great music. Even though convinced it would be good for us, we struggle to fit it in. Perhaps we can combine two good things: doing dishes and great music. In any case, both are worth making time for. This is a suggestion for everyone, but especially directed to dads...
Mapping the Surprising Geographic History of the Film Industry...
Gases for Life, Bishop Healy, and Why I Need the Law...
One hundred and seventy one years ago today — on June 10, 1854 — an American man named James Healy was ordained a priest at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, France. Healy was born on a cotton plantation in central Georgia; his father was an Irishman who’d become a wealthy planter in the rich Georgia soil. Healy was educated in Quaker schools in New York and New Jersey, he was apprenticed to a surveyor, before a bishop friend of his father’s saw to it that James was educated at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.
Glorious Processions: A Reflection on the Upcoming Trinity Sunday...
In today’s Liturgy we’re swept through time in glorious procession, from before earth and sky were set in place to the coming of the Spirit upon the new creation, the Church. We begin in the heart of the Trinity, as we listen to the testimony of Wisdom in today’s First Reading. Eternally begotten, the firstborn of God, He is poured forth from of old in the loving delight of the Father. Through Him, the heavens were established, the foundations of the earth fixed...
Is There Movement (Finally) on Marko Rupnik?
In Apparent Gesture to Pope Leo, Nicaragua Allows Diaconal Ordinations...
In Sharp Policy U-Turn, Vatican News Removes Father Marko Rupnik Art From Website...
Breakthrough Is One Prayer Away: A Message for Pentecost...
The Hidden Science and Engineering of Modern Gas Stations...
Pope Leo XIV: ‘What Unites Christians Is Far Greater Than What Divides’...
Jordan Peterson Is Sinking Into Crisis by Denying His Faith...
Bring It On: Let All That is Hidden Come to Light...
3 Stigmatists Who Became Miracle Factories...
The ‘Norm Effect’: Why George Wendt’s ‘Cheers’ Character Still Resonates in a Lonely World...
Conclave 2025 was short. Is that a cause for concern?
Pope Leo XIV at Third Wednesday General Audience: ‘Your Life Is Worthy’...
‘Closely conformed to his own cross’ — and is 2027 the new 2026?
Watch 150 Amish Carry an Entire Building Down the Road...
St. Charles Lwanga Protected His Friends — and Faced the Flames...
Egyptian Court Ruling Threatens Ancient St. Catherine’s Monastery at Foot of Mount Sinai...
The deep structural reform awaiting Leo XIV beneath the Becciu soap opera...
Bishop Martin and Personal Liturgical Preferences...
Hail Mary, Conceived Without Sin...
Heaven Spoke — and St. Joan of Arc Took Up Her Sword...
Program-Based Ministry: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Answer...
The Lessons of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea...
Looking back at the history itself is useful. It can be tempting to look back through rose-colored glasses on the “early, undivided Church” and imagine that things were perfect. Yet the reality is quite different. The Church of the first three centuries was a body often persecuted by the Roman government. This persecution was sporadic, and scholars debate the details and severity of the various instances...
Pope Leo, Indian Bishops Mourn Crash of London-Bound Air India Flight That Killed More Than 240...
Pope Leo XIV Gives First Indication of How He Might Change ‘Synodality’...
He has only been in office for a month, but every word and action of Pope Leo XIV has been analyzed extensively by the media trying to determine the mentality of the new pontiff, elected on May 8, just a few weeks after Pope Francis died on April 21. Most of what Leo has done was already prepared for his predecessor, including the men he has appointed bishops...
What Dorothy Day and G.K. Chesterton Teach Us About Gratitude...
Her world ended in the 10 days she was in the hospital with her newborn daughter, Tamar, Dorothy Day wrote a little dramatically many years later. “If I had written the greatest book, composed the greatest symphony, painted the most beautiful painting or carved the most exquisite figure, I could not have felt more the exalted creator than I did when they placed my child in my arms,” she wrote in the preface to her book Therese, a biography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
How You Can Build a Culture of Prayer in Your Family...
Is It Time to Smash Your TV?
Professor John Senior, my godfather and one of the professors of the famed Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, was a master of hyperbole. He once hinted to us, his students, that we should just go home and smash our television sets. Perhaps he didn’t mean this literally, but he suggested that this was something we should consider. I know of at least one fellow student who took him at his word and dropped his 19-inch Motorola black and white television set out of the window of his fourth-floor dorm room onto the concrete alley below.
Pope Leo XIV’s Wednesday Audience: ‘There Is No Cry That God Does Not Hear’...
More Young Americans Turning Toward Catholicism: Report...
Pluscarden Abbey’s Hard-Fought Return to the Church...
Seek the Face of ... St. Thomas Aquinas?
The Three V’s of Church Architecture: Vision, Verticality and Volume...
Happily, across America (especially in the South) an increasing number of new Catholic churches, cathedrals and chapels are being built to more traditional designs that aim to inspire through beauty. Whenever I happen to meet our seminarians, I always make it a point to stress the importance of sacred art and architecture, because these are the men who will go into parishes and be charged with building new churches and chapels and renovating and restoring old ones...
Pope Leo XIV Honors Secret Cardinal Who Risked All to Save Jews During the Holocaust...
AI Reveals Dead Sea Scrolls May Be Older Than Previously Thought...
The Holy Spirit Singles Out Each of Us to Gather Us Together at Pentecost...
On Pentecost Sunday Year C, we are faced with two realities. One is mysterious and otherworldly, and the other one is matter-of-fact. As it turns out, though, they are one thing: The coming of the Holy Spirit teaches us that God is real and is poised at the ready to invade our life — but it also teaches us that our everyday life is filled with divine importance. Here are five takeaways from Sunday Readings columns at this site and the Extraordinary Story podcast.
Pope Leo XIV on Pentecost: ‘The Holy Spirit Shatters Our Inner Chains and Transforms Us’...
Australia’s Archbishop Fisher: ‘Second Spring’ of Faith Blooming Against a ‘Fragmented World’...
What’s More Powerful — Lasers or Lightning?
Does God Command Child Abuse When He Tells Abraham to Sacrifice Isaac?
One of the most famous and dramatic scenes in the entire Bible comes in Genesis 22 when God tells Abraham to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him in the land of Moriah. For Christians and non-Christians alike, the passage can feel challenging and perplexing. How could an all-loving God command a father to kill his innocent son? And what’s to stop God doing the same thing again in the future? To answer these questions, we need to look more carefully at what’s going on in the biblical text.
Here are 4 major ways that Pope Leo’s election affects Catholics in the U.S...
A Papal Plea, a Legal Legacy, and Men With Mustaches...
It's the Feast of St. Boniface — Have a Beer!...
Pope Leo XIV, Mathematician: Math-Minded Catholics Claim Pope as One of Their Own...
Charlotte Bishop Delays Traditional Latin Mass Restrictions After Backlash...
Petrocentrism — the focus on the pope as the index of all things Catholic — has its downsides...
This is Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for the month of June...
AI is like the ancient sophists — it tells us what we want to hear...
St. Clotilde: The Queen Who Brought Her Nation to Baptism...
Pope Leo XIV on Special Jubilee Day: ‘Familes Are the Cradle of the Future of Humanity’...
Photos: Pope Leo makes baseball fans proud with one-handed catch of doll thrown from crowd...
The Profound Bow in the Nicene Creed...
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The Complete List of Popes
- St. Peter (32-67)
- St. Linus (67-76)
- St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
- St. Clement I (88-97)
- St. Evaristus (97-105)
- St. Alexander I (105-115)
- St. Sixtus I (115-125)
- St. Telesphorus (125-136)
- St. Hyginus (136-140)
- St. Pius I (140-155)
- St. Anicetus (155-166)
- St. Soter (166-175)
- St. Eleutherius (175-189)
- St. Victor I (189-199)
- St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
- St. Callistus I (217-22)
- St. Urban I (222-30)
- St. Pontian (230-35)
- St. Anterus (235-36)
- St. Fabian (236-50)
- St. Cornelius (251-53)
- St. Lucius I (253-54)
- St. Stephen I (254-257)
- St. Sixtus II (257-258)
- St. Dionysius (260-268)
- St. Felix I (269-274)
- St. Eutychian (275-283)
- St. Caius (283-296)
- St. Marcellinus (296-304)
- St. Marcellus I (308-309)
- St. Eusebius (309 or 310)
- St. Miltiades (311-14)
- St. Sylvester I (314-35)
- St. Marcus (336)
- St. Julius I (337-52)
- Liberius (352-66)
- St. Damasus I (366-84)
- St. Siricius (384-99)
- St. Anastasius I (399-401)
- St. Innocent I (401-17)
- St. Zosimus (417-18)
- St. Boniface I (418-22)
- St. Celestine I (422-32)
- St. Sixtus III (432-40)
- St. Leo I (the Great) (440-61)
- St. Hilarius (461-68)
- St. Simplicius (468-83)
- St. Felix III (II) (483-92)
- St. Gelasius I (492-96)
- Anastasius II (496-98)
- St. Symmachus (498-514)
- St. Hormisdas (514-23)
- St. John I (523-26)
- St. Felix IV (III) (526-30)
- Boniface II (530-32)
- John II (533-35)
- St. Agapetus I (535-36)
- St. Silverius (536-37)
- Vigilius (537-55)
- Pelagius I (556-61)
- John III (561-74)
- Benedict I (575-79)
- Pelagius II (579-90)
- St. Gregory I (the Great) (590-604)
- Sabinian (604-606)
- Boniface III (607)
- St. Boniface IV (608-15)
- St. Deusdedit (Adeodatus I) (615-18)
- Boniface V (619-25)
- Honorius I (625-38)
- Severinus (640)
- John IV (640-42)
- Theodore I (642-49)
- St. Martin I (649-55)
- St. Eugene I (655-57)
- St. Vitalian (657-72)
- Adeodatus (II) (672-76)
- Donus (676-78)
- St. Agatho (678-81)
- St. Leo II (682-83)
- St. Benedict II (684-85)
- John V (685-86)
- Conon (686-87)
- St. Sergius I (687-701)
- John VI (701-05)
- John VII (705-07)
- Sisinnius (708)
- Constantine (708-15)
- St. Gregory II (715-31)
- St. Gregory III (731-41)
- St. Zachary (741-52)
- Stephen II (III) (752-57)
- St. Paul I (757-67)
- Stephen III (IV) (767-72)
- Adrian I (772-95)
- St. Leo III (795-816)
- Stephen IV (V) (816-17)
- St. Paschal I (817-24)
- Eugene II (824-27)
- Valentine (827)
- Gregory IV (827-44)
- Sergius II (844-47)
- St. Leo IV (847-55)
- Benedict III (855-58)
- St. Nicholas I (the Great) (858-67)
- Adrian II (867-72)
- John VIII (872-82)
- Marinus I (882-84)
- St. Adrian III (884-85)
- Stephen V (VI) (885-91)
- Formosus (891-96)
- Boniface VI (896)
- Stephen VI (VII) (896-97)
- Romanus (897)
- Theodore II (897)
- John IX (898-900)
- Benedict IV (900-03)
- Leo V (903)
- Sergius III (904-11)
- Anastasius III (911-13)
- Lando (913-14)
- John X (914-28)
- Leo VI (928)
- Stephen VIII (929-31)
- John XI (931-35)
- Leo VII (936-39)
- Stephen IX (939-42)
- Marinus II (942-46)
- Agapetus II (946-55)
- John XII (955-63)
- Leo VIII (963-64)
- Benedict V (964)
- John XIII (965-72)
- Benedict VI (973-74)
- Benedict VII (974-83)
- John XIV (983-84)
- John XV (985-96)
- Gregory V (996-99)
- Sylvester II (999-1003)
- John XVII (1003)
- John XVIII (1003-09)
- Sergius IV (1009-12)
- Benedict VIII (1012-24)
- John XIX (1024-32)
- Benedict IX (1032-45)
- Sylvester III (1045)
- Benedict IX (1045)
- Gregory VI (1045-46)
- Clement II (1046-47)
- Benedict IX (1047-48)
- Damasus II (1048)
- St. Leo IX (1049-54)
- Victor II (1055-57)
- Stephen X (1057-58)
- Nicholas II (1058-61)
- Alexander II (1061-73)
- St. Gregory VII (1073-85)
- Blessed Victor III (1086-87)
- Blessed Urban II (1088-99)
- Paschal II (1099-1118)
- Gelasius II (1118-19)
- Callistus II (1119-24)
- Honorius II (1124-30)
- Innocent II (1130-43)
- Celestine II (1143-44)
- Lucius II (1144-45)
- Blessed Eugene III (1145-53)
- Anastasius IV (1153-54)
- Adrian IV (1154-59)
- Alexander III (1159-81)
- Lucius III (1181-85)
- Urban III (1185-87)
- Gregory VIII (1187)
- Clement III (1187-91)
- Celestine III (1191-98)
- Innocent III (1198-1216)
- Honorius III (1216-27)
- Gregory IX (1227-41)
- Celestine IV (1241)
- Innocent IV (1243-54)
- Alexander IV (1254-61)
- Urban IV (1261-64)
- Clement IV (1265-68)
- Blessed Gregory X (1271-76)
- Blessed Innocent V (1276)
- Adrian V (1276)
- John XXI (1276-77)
- Nicholas III (1277-80)
- Martin IV (1281-85)
- Honorius IV (1285-87)
- Nicholas IV (1288-92)
- St. Celestine V (1294)
- Boniface VIII (1294-1303)
- Blessed Benedict XI (1303-04)
- Clement V (1305-14)
- John XXII (1316-34)
- Benedict XII (1334-42)
- Clement VI (1342-52)
- Innocent VI (1352-62)
- Blessed Urban V (1362-70)
- Gregory XI (1370-78)
- Urban VI (1378-89)
- Boniface IX (1389-1404)
- Innocent VII (1404-06)
- Gregory XII (1406-15)
- Martin V (1417-31)
- Eugene IV (1431-47)
- Nicholas V (1447-55)
- Callistus III (1455-58)
- Pius II (1458-64)
- Paul II (1464-71)
- Sixtus IV (1471-84)
- Innocent VIII (1484-92)
- Alexander VI (1492-1503)
- Pius III (1503)
- Julius II (1503-13)
- Leo X (1513-21)
- Adrian VI (1522-23)
- Clement VII (1523-34)
- Paul III (1534-49)
- Julius III (1550-55)
- Marcellus II (1555)
- Paul IV (1555-59)
- Pius IV (1559-65)
- St. Pius V (1566-72)
- Gregory XIII (1572-85)
- Sixtus V (1585-90)
- Urban VII (1590)
- Gregory XIV (1590-91)
- Innocent IX (1591)
- Clement VIII (1592-1605)
- Leo XI (1605)
- Paul V (1605-21)
- Gregory XV (1621-23)
- Urban VIII (1623-44)
- Innocent X (1644-55)
- Alexander VII (1655-67)
- Clement IX (1667-69)
- Clement X (1670-76)
- Blessed Innocent XI (1676-89)
- Alexander VIII (1689-91)
- Innocent XII (1691-1700)
- Clement XI (1700-21)
- Innocent XIII (1721-24)
- Benedict XIII (1724-30)
- Clement XII (1730-40)
- Benedict XIV (1740-58)
- Clement XIII (1758-69)
- Clement XIV (1769-74)
- Pius VI (1775-99)
- Pius VII (1800-23)
- Leo XII (1823-29)
- Pius VIII (1829-30)
- Gregory XVI (1831-46)
- Blessed Pius IX (1846-78)
- Leo XIII (1878-1903)
- St. Pius X (1903-14)
- Benedict XV (1914-22)
- Pius XI (1922-39)
- Pius XII (1939-58)
- St. John XXIII (1958-63)
- St. Paul VI (1963-78)
- John Paul I (1978)
- St. John Paul II (1978-2005)
- Benedict XVI (2005-2013)
- Francis (2013-2025)
- Leo XIV (2025—)
