Every hotel you’ve stayed in has a Catholic origin
The welcome of the stranger has a long history. Christianity didn’t invent it—but it changed it in ways still felt every time someone opens a door.
Latest articles by Daniel Esparza
5 Marian Feasts of summer you may be missing
Between May and August, the liturgical calendar offers five encounters with the Virgin Mary. Each has its own landscape, its own traditions, and its own theology.
Augustine took a holiday. Here’s what he did with it.
He borrowed a friend’s country villa, brought his mother and his students, and spent the time arguing about happiness. A model for any summer retreat.
Tolkien began writing Middle-earth on a family holiday
The children were playing in the rock pools when their father started what would become the most widely read work of fiction of the 20th century.
Venezuela’s poor are leading the relief effort
In one of Latin America’s largest slums, the Church mobilized within hours of the Venezuelan earthquakes. A bishop’s account from the ground.
The Desert Fathers knew something about long, hot days
Fifteen centuries before the smartphone, the monks of Egypt named a spiritual illness that strikes hardest in summer heat. Their diagnosis is uncomfortably accurate.
Two lost sermons by Augustine found in Poland
The newly discovered texts tackle one of the Bible’s most theologically awkward passages.
What most people get wrong about the Camino de Santiago
The feast of St. James is July 25. If you are thinking about walking to Compostela, you should know what most people get wrong before they start.
A boy named Leo gave the Pope a ball and a letter
10 years ago, little Leo arrived alone in Lampedusa, having lost his mother at sea. On Saturday, he handed his namesake a football — and a note that stopped the world.
Our Lady of Portosalvo: The Madonna who watches over the sea
Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass in Lampedusa today beneath her image. She has been watching over the island’s waters for centuries.
Rome confirms excommunication of 6 SSPX bishops
The Society of Saint Pius X consecrated four bishops without papal mandate on July 1. Under canon law, the excommunication was automatic. Rome’s decree the following day simply recorded it.
Leo XIV closes consistory: “Violence will not have the last word”
The Pope concluded two days of work with the College of Cardinals with a unanimous appeal for peace and a call to rebuild a culture of dialogue.
Leo XIV opens Consistory with a call for synodal courage
Addressing the College of Cardinals in Rome, the Pope asked for frank counsel, public support, and a shared commitment to missionary discernment.
The Church opens its doors as Venezuela counts its dead
Here's how to help after 2 earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 24, devastating the country. The Catholic community is leading the response.
St. Augustine’s guide to a holy summer rest
We have forgotten how to stop. Augustine has some surprisingly practical advice.
Malta: Walking with Mary through 2,000 years of faith
From a 5th-century cave shrine to pilgrimage routes tracing a king's footsteps, Malta's Marian devotion is written into every stone, street, and festa of the archipelago.
Barcelona marks 50 years of democracy with helicopter full of poems
Ten days after Pope Leo XIV told the city to lift its eyes, the sky over the Gothic Quarter rained 100,000 verses where bombs once fell.
Augustine “invented” the inner self. We are still living inside it.
Long before therapy, before the novel, before the examined life became a dominant cultural ideal, a 5th-century bishop in North Africa mapped the territory we now call the self.
Until everyone is safe: What the Church asks of us today
World Refugee Day falls this year on the 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention. The Catholic tradition has never needed a convention to know what is owed to the stranger.
Where are you going? The Gospel’s most unsettled question
In the Gospel of John, the disciples’ first question and their last are mirror images of each other. The Greek makes the connection impossible to miss.
