First Communion is a powerful church and family ritual; no one who has been present can miss its importance for the children taking part.

Why do we need ministers of Communion? Why not just pass the eucharistic bread and wine and let people take it themselves?

Why and how did the celibate state became a requirement for ordination?

Nowhere in the current catechism is there any treatment of a belief that was part of the common teaching of the church for over 700 years.

Cardinal Walter Kasper on the relationship between the universal church and local churches.

A generation has elapsed since the close of the Second Vatican Council, and the church has underscored the council’s extraordinary ecclesial and historical significance by beatifying, this Sept. 3, Pope John XXIII. At the same time, however, the beatification of Pope Pius IX highlighted the ti