The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, ...read more

S+L’s Kris Dmytrenko is walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. He may write regular updates for the blog, or he may not until he reaches the end–as the spirit (and wifi availability) leads him. The Camino de Santiago is infused with Spanish Catholicism — as it should be, since this walking pilgrimage leads ...read more

The presence of Mary, Mother of Christ, is close to us. I entrust each one of you to this Mother. Because she is the source of our consolation and therefore of our hopes. Because the Mother of Christ, and our Mother, can give you the love of God as a gift. I want to entrust ...read more

Let us be buried with Christ by Baptism to rise with him; let us go down with him to be raised with him; and let us rise with him to be glorified with him. Everything that happened to Christ lets us know that, after the bath of water, the Holy Spirit swoops down upon us ...read more

Should we, as Catholics, worry about ecology? Didn’  God give us the earth to take care of and use it responsibly? In his message for the World Day of Peace in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI chose the theme If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation. In this message he says “‘creation is the beginning ...read more

Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but “the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason ...read more

Faith is a personal act – the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life. The believer ...read more

God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”: that is, of Christ Jesus. Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth: God graciously arranged that the things he had once revealed for the salvation ...read more

On the second to last working day at the Synod, our team in Rome spoke to Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Colombus, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Congregation for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Angelo Schola, Archbishop of Milan as well as one of the youngest participants at the Synod: a 23 ...read more

Tonight on perspectives the Holy See announces the end of the case of Vatican leaks and the Holy Father receives the president of Republic of Cyprus ...read more