The first two things that jump out when reading the working document, or instrumentum laboris, for the forthcoming synod, which was released June 20, are how much the document charts a new approach to ...

In particular, the document includes responses by different Christian communities to Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on Christian unity. Pope Francis waves to the crowd gathered in St. Peter's ...

All the popes of the post-Vatican II period have been, in different ways, faithful to the Second Vatican Council. None of them has abrogated or superseded the documents of Vatican II, on the contrary: ...

The council fathers at Vatican II in 1962 (Wikimedia Commons). But sometimes you have to go backward to go forward. One of the greatest inspirations of the Second Vatican Council was ...

On that windy Wednesday morning, Dec. 8, 1965, the Second Vatican Council came to an end. In the presence of more than 2,300 Council Fathers, mostly bishops, and some 300,000 faithful gathered in St.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on Saturday, left behind an extensive body of work examining and diagnosing ills in the Catholic Church. A theological and spiritual giant to many, Benedict's ...

Pope Paul VI presides over a 1963 session of Vatican II. Credit: CNS photo/Catholic Press Photo. The constitution, wrote America associate editor Donald R. Campion, S.J., shortly after its publication ...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican on Monday reaffirmed its opposition to gender-affirmation surgeries, gender theory and surrogate parenthood, as well as abortion and euthanasia, four months after ...

In a new document on human dignity issued Monday, the Vatican’s department that guides Catholic doctrine reinforced the church’s opposition to abortion, surrogacy, gender theory, and any attempt to ...