What makes a particular Church Council Ecumenical? How many have fit this definition down through history, and what is their importance and authority? The Catholic and Orthodox Churches have related but somewhat different answers to these questions....
The first in a 4 part series on the Magisterium, or sacred teaching office, of the Catholic Church, explaining the relation between Church authority and biblical authority, and how written documents, even inspired writings of the BIble, require authentic, authoritative interpretation....
Was the divinity of Jesus Christ and the dogma of the Trinity invented by the Roman Emperor Constantine? Here is extensive evidence from the Early Church Fathers before AD 312 for the belief that Jesus was divine,...
An intro to Hippolytus of Rome whose work, the Apostolic Tradition, reveals intimate details of the life of prayer and worship of the Roman Church in the late second century....
The Messianic Secret -- why does Jesus not want the word to get out that he is the Messiah?? Could it have something to do with the cross and the enigma that the only way to find yourself is to lose yourself?...
In this third and final episode of Ascension Rountable's Podcast Series on the New Evangelization, Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio (aka Dr. Italy) provides further practical suggestions on a key feature of successful evangelization - hospitality....
The Mass . . . the Eucharist . . . the Lord's Supper . . . the Blessed Sacrament . . . holy communion . . . transubstantiation -- what Catholics have believed and taught about this awesome reality, by whatever name it is called,...
What should be our response to teaching of the Magisterium that is not necessarily infallible? Are Catholics free in these cases to dissent from the teaching of the Church? 4th in a series on the Magisterium....
The first thing that the Pope wants to establish is the focus and framework of his teaching and his entire Pontificate. It is all about love. But the Pope wants to distinguish the romantic or erotic love of “eros” from the divine love called “agape”...
Benedict XVI has published his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, God is love. Why did he write it? Why did he choose this theme? What was his intention? The Holy Father responds to these questions, addressed to him by Zenit.org, in the following words which...