A chainsaw-wielding sister is just the latest viral sensation.

The emphasis on priests in the Catholic church may have arisen from the Reformation, one priest said.

Depending on who is counting, the anti-drug war in the Philippines has claimed from 2,000 to more than 7,000 lives, both in police operations and vigilante-style or extrajudicial killings.

The remains of Father Solanus Casey were exhumed Aug. 1 as part of the canonical process that precedes the saintly Capuchin Franciscan friar's beatification Mass in November.

Many of the Little Brothers of Jesus, including Francis' choice to head Rome's seminary, are manual laborers, who strive simply to be a presence of friendship and solidarity with their co-workers and neighbors.

By a bizarre twist of fate, the taste of the age, “hipster taste,” runs parallel to monastic notions of work, prayer and what we might call the monastic aesthetic.