The USPS website to get four free COVID tests quietly went online a day early. If you want to beat the rush, here’s how to do it...

Why the Tonga volcanic eruption was so violent, and what to expect next...

Cana was a cosmic wedding feast...
Tom Neal
Sunday’s readings for Holy Mass were the end of a trio of Sunday “epiphanies” — the first an epiphany of Christ revealed to the pagan Magi; the second an epiphany of the mystery of the Trinity over the Jordan river at Christ’s baptism as the Father’s voice thundered over his Son and the Spirit descended as a dove; and a third epiphany of Jesus’ eucharistic water-to-wine sign at Cana’s wedding feast that revealed his mystic identity as a Bridegroom...

Pope to confer new lay ministries (catechist, lector, acolyte) for first time in St. Peter’s Basilica this Sunday...

MLK, the Law and Human Rights...
Deacon Michael Forrest
It has always struck me how close Martin Luther King Day is to the day the Supreme Court affirmed we could legally deny unborn children the most fundamental civil right of all: the right to live and not be killed. Every year, when I talk with my 10th-grade religious-education students at this time (MLK Day and the anniversary of Roe v...

This Church-approved 1980 Marian apparition echoes Our Lady of Fatima...
Joseph Pronechen
The year is 1980. The town is Cuapa, near the middle of Nicaragua — 59 straight miles northeast of the capital of Managua and 96 miles via highways and roads. The date is April 15. While carrying out his work as a simple church sacristan in what was called the “old chapel,” Bernardo Martinez sees a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary producing a supernatural light — heaven’s way to announce he would soon see the Blessed Mother...

Friendship between cardinal and politician cemented comeback of ‘Bologna school’...
John Allen
When Italy recently celebrated a state funeral for David Sassoli, the President of the European Parliament who died unexpectedly from Legionnaire’s disease on Jan. 11, the Mass was held in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and attended by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Mario Draghi, European President Ursula von der Leyen...

Rare 19th-century film of Pope Leo XIII, remastered and colorized...

Sister Jeannine Gramick has a 50-year record of dissent from Catholic beliefs on homosexuality, women’s ordination and abortion...
Ann Carey
When I first heard that Pope Francis had written a letter to Loretto Sister Jeannine Gramick praising her 50 years of ministry, I immediately thought it had to be a case of mistaken identity. Surely the Pope or his staff had confused her with any one of the thousands of Catholic sisters who have toiled for a half-century to teach and model the truths of the Catholic faith and who deserve such a letter...

Jesus has opened up the pathway of supreme humility...
Anthony Lilles
Jesus Christ has opened up the pathway to freedom and this pathway is the pathway of supreme humility. It is a trail blazed by the Word made flesh and a journey that leads to the Burning Bush where the limitlessness of God sets the limits of man aflame with love. Love alone knows how to find this trail and faith, unshod and thus vulnerable...

Marching into the fray, a culture of evangelization, and a process story...
Ed Condon
Next week is the March for Life here in Washington. It’s the first time the event will take place in person since the beginning of 2020. Last year, the march moved online at the last minute, in the wake of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6. This week, the event’s organizers unveiled a speaker list markedly less political than in previous years...

Diplomacy in the Church, in light of the Gospel...

‘Failure to launch’ — the reluctance of males to become men — is a far bigger problem than you realize...

A McCarthy ton lifts the Catholic cricket team in Sydney, Australia...

Here’s what 260 mph on the Autobahn in a Bugatti Chiron looks like in real time...

How ingenious ranchers used barbed-wire fences (and pop and whiskey bottles) to make phone calls...

Why this new-stuff-in-the-Spirit synod rhetoric, as seen in the USCCB tweet, is so damaging...