Note from the Managing Editor:

He's got an infectious laugh and a smile that could light up whole city blocks, with a keen wit and a propensity for not taking himself too seriously. At the same time, he's unyielding in defending Catholic orthodoxy, never mincing words or allowing himself to be cowed by the conventions of political correctness.

Mercy itself demands that catechesis involves, among many other things, Catholics coming to know that intrinsically evil acts put our souls at risk.

The cross must be faced, sooner or later, even when we're inside the walls of the Church. Every marriage includes some element of the cross. Some marriages include very little else. But they are real marriages.

Family life seems to overshadow eternal life. Where is the traditional wisdom that our life on earth is short and we need to look beyond it even to live well here?

The dominant reason many European bishops desire to modify Catholic sacramental practice to accommodate the sexual revolution is because they lack confidence that conversion is truly possible.

"A new union cannot be recognised as valid if the preceding marriage was valid. If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists."

Twenty-one martyrs were beheaded on a beach in Libya in February. Work began on the foundations of the new church in the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Samalout earlier this year.

In one recent year a right-to-die clinic that had been set up in the Netherlands to serve people whose regular doctors wouldn't give them lethal injections approved the killing of eleven whose only complaint was that they were "tired of living."

The Indian government has made it a legal requirement for orphanages to submit records to a central database that helps match prospective parents with children, making it easier for divorced and single people to adopt.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced today it would no longer accept reimbursements for tissue donated to researchers from aborted babies.

Kirsten Powers, USA Today columnist and contributor to Fox News, announced her decision to become Catholic on a live broadcast of "The Five."

"I dressed as Islamist and fled on a motorcycle with the help of a Muslim friend" to the town of Zeydal, near Homs.

A prayer rule touches on some of the stability and institutional character of the Benedict Option. It doesn't technically involve others, but it could if it's the kind of thing you can invite others into.

A "mechanistic understanding of mental function" presupposes a particular view of nature and human nature that is broadly materialistic. But the mind (and, more generally, the soul) will remain radically other than, and not reducible to, physical phenomena; our brains do not "make us who we are."

Our unfettered ability to make digital connections is leading to a decline in actual conversation. In having fewer meaningful conversations each day, we're losing the skills that made them possible to begin with — the ability to focus deeply, think things through, read emotions, and empathize with others.

What success Playboy had was as a result of being initially taboo, which is the only real excitement that sin ever has. The truth about sin is that it tends to be a boring process of repetition long after the thrill of the sin has vanished.

It is better to be incorrect in a context where the language is acknowledged as difficult than to assume understanding because it's being presented to you as transparent.

I'd like to suggest a modest addition to our campaigns against sexual assault on campus: Instead of simply pleading with students to ask for explicit consent when having sex, we should be asking them why they are having sex in the first place.

In a world where we each have more email, voicemail, texts, meetings, and Skype-chats than we could possibly digest in a lifetime, the Tridentine Mass offers a complete contemplative oasis. You have the right to be silent when you pray.

This miniature tabernacle — a portable shrine — is a boxwood microcarving which is as much a virtuoso plaything as an aid to devotion. It comes apart in three main sections, unfolding like a flower to reveal tiny carved scenes telling the life of Jesus Christ.