The portrait of Pope Francis that emerges from conversations with his friends is that of a man as resolutely down-to-earth and dependably Argentinian as his immigrant neighborhood.

Our natural impulse is to do whatever it takes to keep gasoline and other prices low. But should it be cheap to further endanger our planet?

In “Camera Man,” the critic Dana Stevens uses the biography of the great silent film clown as a lens to explore the early days of movies, the cultural forces that gave them birth and the social upheavals they in turn engendered.

The Oscar nominee “Drive My Car” is a three-hour elegy whose quiet intensity intimates an emotional storm beneath the surface.

“As a Deaf person, I am exhausted at yet another mainstream story that pretends to be about my identity filtered through the eyes of the hearing other,” writes Garrett Zuercher.

Saint Peter’s stands out for living out its commitment to justice in real time, primarily serving first-generation college students from diverse backgrounds.

Give us a magic trick, but not a miracle.

This week on “Jesuitical,” we ask author Greg Hillis why some question Thomas Merton’s Catholicity, what we should make of the monk’s brief affair with a nurse—and why his writing is still relevant today.

A Reflection for the Solemnity of the Annunciation (Friday of the Third Week of Lent), by Sam Sawyer, S.J.

Want better music at Mass? Leave it to the professionals (and pay them).