“I’m an African American woman in a space that is doing the kind of work that…Christ is calling us to do,” Cynthia Bailey Manns, who will participate in the Synod on Synodality as a voting member in October, said in an interview.

I spoke with friends who work with young people, and young people themselves, to get the hardest questions about God and religion.

Ten years ago on the flight back from his first World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis spoke these five simple words that reverberated around the world: “Who am I to judge?”

Sinéad O'Connor, who was found dead in London on July 26, thwarted any attempt throughout her life to extinguish her creativity or her output.

Carl Lentz ultimately was not disgraced by his deceptions, sexual affairs and banishment from the pulpit of the megawatt Pentecostal church: He was re-graced.

Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik has been meeting with people in the LGBTQ+ community following a canceled June “Pride Mass” at a Catholic university, saying he hopes “to pave a path for LGBTQ people to feel and be more welcomed” in the church.

In two recent cases, the Supreme Court seemed to protect religious belief, but in saying that a website developer cannot be compelled to endorse same-sex marriage, it relied on free speech principles.

The slate of delegates is emblematic of the at-times competing ideological poles of the U.S. church—and the continued effort by Francis to reorient U.S. bishops toward his vision for the church.

“I’m honored to be invited by the Holy Father to participate in the Synod,” Father James Martin said. “As a Jesuit, I’m committed to this kind of group discernment.”

As local newspapers close and newsrooms shrink around the United States, strong local Catholic journalism is increasingly crucial, and Catholic journalism faces additional challenges.