While the Catholicism Forum is primarily designed for Catholic readers of the About.com Catholicism GuideSite, some of the most interesting threads have been started by non-Catholics. My Forum Friday pick ... Read More

This week, as we continue our series of reader questions concerning the marriage laws of the Catholic Church, I'm combining three questions that may not, at first glance, seem related. ... Read More

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August 1 is the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, a bishop and doctor of the Church. Born in 1696, Saint Alphonsus founded the Redemptorist order (the Congregation of the Most ... Read More

Having discussed prayer, the interior life of all Christians, in Lesson Twenty-Eighth, the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 now begins six lessons on the exterior rule of life: the Ten Commandments. While ... Read More

Whether you have visited the Catholicism Forum or not, you have certainly seen me mention Steven Hepburn, our forum moderator. Steven is an unpaid volunteer who does a fantastic job ... Read More

Our series of reader questions concerning the marriage laws of the Catholic Church continues. Last week, we talked about one reason why the Church might not marry someone who had ... Read More

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The recent release of Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical, Caritas in veritate, followed the very next day by a motu proprio on the unity of the Church (Ecclesiae unitatem), has ... Read More

This coming Sunday is the Feast of Saints Joachim and Anna, the father and mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Under the traditional calendar, July 26 belonged to Saint Anna ... Read More

Last week, we discussed sacramentals, which help turn our minds and hearts to God; prayer is the natural outgrowth of that movement. So it's natural that, in Lesson Twenty-Eighth, ... Read More

Last week, I discussed an article by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf entitled "The Problem With Toning Down the Rhetoric—And Why We Probably Won’t Do It." Posted at Father Zuhlsdorf's indispensable blog ... Read More

I received a big surprise this week: a healthy number of referrals to the About.com Catholicism GuideSite from CBS.com. Why was a television network sending readers my way? Intrigued, I ... Read More

Questions concerning the marriage laws of the Catholic Church are among those that readers most frequently ask. This week and next, I will address some of the most common. Using our ... Read More

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On July 16, the Church will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which commemorates the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Simon Stock on July ... Read More

On Friday, July 10, after attending the G8 economic summit, U.S. President Barack Obama paid a visit to Pope Benedict XVI. By all accounts, the meeting was a cordial one, ... Read More

Having concluded the discussion of the sacraments in Lesson Twenty-Sixth, the Baltimore Catechism No. 2 now takes up the discussion of sacramentals in Lesson Twenty-Seventh. The word sacramentals is not much ... Read More

There have been a number of interesting discussions in the Catholicism Forum this week. Two that I've found quite fruitful were both started by new forum member "jayd808." "The Entwined ... Read More

Last week's reader question was perhaps the most frequently asked question regarding the fulfilling of our Sunday Duty. But our question this week is a close second: I understand that the ... Read More

On July 8, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI released a motu proprio entitled Ecclesiae unitatem. The short document concerns the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which was established on July 2, 1988, ... Read More

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Father John Zuhlsdorf at What Does the Prayer Really Say? has joined me on the road less traveled by and held off on posting too much on Pope Benedict's new ... Read More

When Rerum novarum was released in 1891, no one expected immediate commentary on Pope Leo XIII's rich (and dense) instruction on the "Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor." The ... Read More

The prayer I have chosen as the Novena of the Week this week may look familiar, because I featured it as the Novena of the Week back in April, in ... Read More

Longtime readers of this weblog know that I have great admiration for Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, whose What Does the Prayer Really Say? weblog is a must-read for all faithful Catholics. ... Read More

Lesson Twenty-Sixth concludes the discussion of the sacraments in Baltimore Catechism No. 2. Last week, we examined Holy Orders; this week, we take a look at the Sacrament of ... Read More

If you dropped by the Catholicism GuideSide on Wednesday, looking for the latest Wordless Wednesday offering, you went away empty-handed. The good news is that Wordless Wednesday hasn't disappeared; I ... Read More

This week, rather than draw your attention to one of the myriad discussions taking place in the Catholicism Forum, I'd like to mention some changes our moderator, Steven Hepburn, and ... Read More

Today's reader question was submitted through our new submission form, Readers Respond: Do You Have a Question About Catholicism? It's a frequently asked question: At what stage in the Mass when ... Read More

The Vatican announced yesterday that Caritas in veritate ("Charity in truth"), Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical, was signed by the Holy Father on June 29, 2009, the Feast of Saints ... Read More

Each month, Pope Benedict XVI announces his special prayer intentions—particular things that he wishes all Catholics to pray for that month. (When, for instance, we pray the rosary and ... Read More