Note from the Assistant Managing Editor:

The main thing is that whatever be done, it be done tastefully and qualitatively and follow the basic form seen here: a candle for each Sunday of Advent and a wreath made from some sort of greenery.

My heart sank this morning when I saw that the Christmas tree was set up in St. Peter's Square today. We're still ten days away from Advent!

It's hard to buy something for a person who has everything. It is even more difficult to buy something for someone who takes a vow of poverty.

A groundbreaking report by an Archdiocese of Vancouver review committee on clerical sexual abuse has been released.

Catholics cannot avoid responsibility for the current moral morass. No one is exempt from the duty to repudiate error and speak the truth.

"Who is silent is seen to consent, where he can and must speak."

Especially in the case of one of the greatest evangelists of his time, the evangelical dimension of a beatification is essential.

For healthy development, children do best when surrounded by the love and affection of their parents.

Growing up in the culture of sociology taught me to engage in a set of behaviors to ensure that we would "always be wanted." Although the term "wantedness" was a quality originally assigned to births, the concept began to touch all aspects of children's lives, teaching us to engage in a dangerous — sometimes deadly — dance of perfectionism.

Calvary, there are three other reactions to the Crucified One. They come from Dismas's opposites and reveal the attitudes that always oppose Christ the King.

Waters hit the highest level in more than 50 years.

A new Silicon Valley productivity fad suggests removing from your life any experience that brings pleasure, which leads to dopamine spikes in the brain. Russian Orthodox hermits would have made Valley boys look like kids on vacation.

In a speech last night, the Missouri senator offered a dark vision of our nation's problems. But what will he do to solve them? What can he do?

Since Facebook — and to an extent other social media sites — do not take free speech rights seriously, it is time for all Americans, not just as conservatives or liberals, to look for other platforms to find and express their thoughts and opinions.

The author of Finding Darwin's God says he doesn't think the Church should have "an official position on science, because science is constantly changing; science is dynamic, but faith is eternal."

One of the arresting achievements of Stephen R. L. Clark's 1982 Gifford Lectures is to show the theological is natural. Clark inverts the common picture to demonstrate how reason, knowledge, and virtue are founded on faith, hope, and love.

It is a rare pleasure to be able to write in full-throated commendation of a signal event at an important academic institution.

Perhaps it is time for an American military incursion into Mexico — even without the agreement of the Mexican government — to rout out and eliminate the cartels. We might ask if international law and Catholic teaching permit such an action.

St. Florian, a Roman soldier who organized and trained "an elite group of soldiers whose sole duty was to fight fires," is the patron saint of firefighters.