On Thursday, Pope Francis declared the death penalty to be inadmissible in the Catholic Church, stating that “every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.”
The New York Times reports this week that Pope Francis told a gay man his sexuality “does not matter,” and that being gay is “not a problem.”
This year the theme for the 2018 Met Gala was unleashed upon the world: “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” Oh, boy.
A Catholic college in Kansas has decided to do away with its yoga classes, recasting them instead as “lifestyle fitness.” Administrators are concerned that offering yoga will give the mistaken impression that the Catholic Church is down with Hindu mysticism. It’s not! It swears!!
Of the many things I find absurd about the Catholic Church, my alma mater, one of the most unfathomable is that they expect us to go into a dark, usually too-hot booth with an adult dude we don’t even know and tell him everything we’ve done wrong. Confession is a little bit like therapy, but without the benefit of…
Have you ever seen Sister Act? Ha, look who I’m talking to. Of course you’ve seen Sister Act. Do you, as a huge fan of Sister Act, remember the scenes in which the sounds of Sister Mary Clarence’s revamped choir lure in unbelievers from the outside and call them to worship? The success Mary Clarence has in making the…
The film critic for L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper owned by the Holy See, saw Star War: The Force Gets Woke and didn’t like it as much as the overwhelming majority of critics did. This is funny for countless reasons, the most important being the image of bishops quietly saying things like “Chewbacca” and…
Kim Davis, a famously ineffective Kentucky county clerk, has been strutting all over the fucking media, being like “I am a true Christian because I took a meeting with the Pope.” It turns out that meeting was really more like a late-night text conversation, in which Davis wrote, “Hey babe, wanna cum over?” and the…
Jessica Mann, a 33-year-old social worker, is in her third trimester of pregnancy with her third child. Instead of resting and getting ready for the baby, she is fighting a battle with her Catholic hospital, which has refused to grant her a potentially life-saving procedure.
A spiritual battle is simmering between the Vatican and a popular shrine to the Virgin Mary in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the New York Times reports. The Vatican is investigating the shrine’s main claim to fame: that the Virgin Mary makes regular, in-person appearances. They are skeptical.
The exceptionally handwringy Media Research Center—a conservative organization devoted to being professionally shocked, just shocked—is already exceptionally upset about The Real O’Neals, a forthcoming ABC show loosely based on sex columnist Dan Savage’s childhood. I’m sorry: sex columnist and “pro-gay bully Dan…
It’s the Holy Year of Mercy in the Catholic world, and the remarkably chill Pope Francis has announced that the Vatican will mark the occasion by sending out “missionaries of mercy” who will pardon women for having had abortions and doctors for performing them. Abortion, which is considered a mortal sin, can still…
Cool Pope Francis is really upset about the wage gap. Same.
NUNS WIN! NUNS WIN! Or at least American nuns no longer have a Vatican investigation hanging over their heads, anyway.
A new Vatican document has denounced plastic surgery, calling it "aggressive" and saying it threatens "the feminine identity, showing a refusal of the body." The same document also lumps in abortion with female genital mutilation and rape as things that harm women, just in case you were worried the Vatican was…
The American bishops of the Catholic Church assembled in Baltimore this week for their annual meeting. And they were clucking and fluttering like a bunch of hens, trying to calm the tizzy kicked up by Pope Francis and his kindler, gentler approach to the culture wars.
On Monday, #chillpope kicked off a big two-week Vatican summit about the Catholic family. Popping by to speak to the gathering were Ron and Mavis Pirola, an Australian couple with 55 years of marriage under their belts, who informed the assembled celibates that, yeah, sex matters. A lot.
Francis has a rep as the Chillest Pope, but he's not lightening up when it comes to the command to go forth and multiply. The CEO of the Catholic Church does not approve of the childfree lifestyle, and he insists you should raise kids, not pets.
A group of Italian women have written a letter to Pope Francis, asking for an end to the Catholic Church's requirement of celibacy for priests. Their reason? They say they've all been in (or would like to be in) secret relationships with men of the cloth.
Cool pope Pope Francis is so cool (HOW COOL IS HE?) that he recently said he'd be willing to baptize aliens from outer space if they ever touch down on Earth looking to be saved.
