catholics
I'm OK, You're OK, the Pope's OK
Half a year into his tenure, Pope Francis has proved to be mainly good at generating headlines for saying that gay people and atheists are OK and in general advocating niceness. That should be exciting, even if you're not a Catholic.
Pope Francis Is Shockingly Good at Social Media
My main man in Vatican City has decided to take social media by storm. Pope Benedict shocked the world when he became the first tweeting Pope in history, but his Twitter game was sparse and crappy. In contrast, Francis’s approach to social media brings...
The Sad State of America’s Aging Sisters
Convents are closing all around America. What will become of the rapidly aging sisters who live there?
Another Year of Booze and Bruises at the Belfast Twelfth
July 12 is probably the biggest date in Northern Ireland’s political calendar. Each year, hundreds of Orangemen and loyalist marching bands descend upon Belfast to parade around the city in commemoration of a Dutch Protestant defeating an English...
New Atheism's Nasty Streak of Islamophobia
If your project is to convince people that religion is evil and should be wiped from the face of the earth, and that rational, enlightened atheism is the beacon of truth towards which we must steer the storm-battered ship of the human race, is directly...
Meet Frank
Rejoice! The new pope is a man of the people! He famously cooks his own meals, rides the bus to work, and lives in a single apartment rather than in the palace befitting an archbishop. These are all good things! But there's also this...
Mother Teresa Was a Jerk, and So Were a Bunch of Other Saints
According to a study conducted by Canadian researchers, Mother Teresa wasn't as saintly as everyone assumed. But if you look back on the 10,000 people who have been canonized by the Catholic Church over the centuries, some of the other saints were way...
Catholic Guilt Ruined My Sex Life
He told me about his strict Catholic upbringing and how it was sinful for us to be having sex out of wedlock, and that his mother would “die” if she ever found out. I was the second girl he’d ever slept with, but he still made me feel cheap.
The Collection Plate
Catholics, keep in mind the next time the collection plate get passed, your money may not go towards buying the clergy new robes or building a soup kitchen. It could go towards anti-gay marriage bills.
God Save Belfast
There was a time when the conflict in Northern Ireland suffused popular culture, with its easily explicable cast of Catholics and Protestants and its deceptively simple narrative of joining the Republic of Ireland versus remaining under the protective...