World & Nation

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, have taken issue with the pope’s Gospel teaching on peace. Vice President of the United States J. D. Vance speaking with attendees at the 2025 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons) The U.S. bishops’ chair for doctrine issued a clarification on April 15 reaffirming that Catholic just war theory sets strict moral limits on the use of military...

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich in November 2018. (Photo by Olivier LPB via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0). Your Eminence:   In an article recently published by a major German Catholic website, you suggested that the question of whether the Church can ordain women has not been definitively settled: “I cannot imagine how a Church can continue to exist in the long run if half of God’s people suffer because they have no access to ordained ministry.” Putting aside for a moment the questions of...

Archbishop James R. Golka preaches during his March 25 Installation Mass. (Photo by Rachel Moore/Denver Catholic) In response to a Sunday evening social media post by President Donald J. Trump criticizing Pope Leo XIV, Denver Archbishop James R. Golka has joined his brother bishops in responding. His brief statement is printed in full below. "I join my brother bishops in stating clearly that the recent remarks directed at Pope Leo by President Trump are not acceptable. Such language fails to...

The Holy Father’s global challenge comes amid growing tensions in the Middle East and beyond. Pope Leo XIV greets the crowd after delivering his Easter blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world) from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican April 5, 2026. (Photo: CNS/Lola Gomez) In the face of increasing tensions worldwide, Pope Leo XIV has called the faithful to join him in a prayer vigil for peace on Saturday, April 11. An Easter Challenge In his first Easter Urbi...

Pope Leo XIV greets visitors and pilgrims from the popemobile while riding around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience March 18, 2026. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez) On March 21, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy profile of the Pope as its “Saturday Essay.” The subtitle — “Pope Leo XIV pushes back against President Trump. Can the pontiff from Chicago make a difference in an era of power politics?” — gave the game away from the git-go: the Pope is to be...

"Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary" by Raphael, c. 1516. (Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) The Way of the Cross — and the third, seventh, and ninth stations in particular — has been an especially appropriate Lenten devotion this year. Every day, it seems, some new craziness erupts in the world, the country, or the Church. Every time we think we see rays of hope and possibility, we take another fall. So it’s good to remember this Holy Week, with Hans Urs von Balthasar, that we...

United States Supreme Court Building Courtesy: WIX Editor’s Note: On March 31, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling striking down Colorado’s ban on "so-called" conversion therapy for minors. The following statement is from the Colorado Catholic Conference, which represents the collective public policy voice of the Catholic bishops of Colorado. Colorado Catholic Conference Statement on the United States Supreme Court victory in Chiles v. Salazar     The Colorado Catholic...

St. Augustine Arguing with Donatists by Charles André van Loo, c. 1753. (Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) My Lenten reading has included an interesting, if somewhat odd, book about the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church: Augustine the African by Catherine Conybeare, a philologist currently teaching at Bryn Mawr. The interesting part of the book reframes Augustine as a North African provincial who sees the world differently — and thus thinks differently and more creatively...

After 14 years leading the Archdiocese of Denver, Archbishop Samuel Aquila will enter retirement on March 25. By Francesca Pollio Fenton/EWTN News Over the past 14 years, Archbishop Samuel Aquila has led the Archdiocese of Denver. Appointed to lead the archdiocese in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, Aquila — who at 75 has reached the customary retirement age for prelates — now prepares to hand the role over to Bishop James Golka, who will be installed as the archdiocese’s new leader on March 25....

On pilgrimage in France, two seminarians and a priest got to know the archdiocese’s earliest shepherds on their home turf.   Father Trevor Lontine, Carl Berner and Luke Metzer, all studying in Rome, went on pilgrimage to France last month, walking in the footsteps of some of Denver's spiritual leaders. (Photo provided) By Carl Berner  Seminarian Archdiocese of Denver  Every priest and seminarian has a “vocation story,” a record of God’s providence over his Church; it tells of how God has set...

John Allen with Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. (Photo: Thomas S. Major via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0) Early Sunday morning, July 28, 2002, things were looking grim for the closing papal Mass of World Youth Day in Toronto. The previous four days had been a tremendous success, symbolized by hundreds of thousands of young people making the Way of the Cross up Toronto’s great north-south boulevard, University Avenue: an act of Christian witness the likes of which had never been seen in that...

(Denver Catholic file photo) Editor's Note: Archbishop Emeritus Samuel J. Aquila released this statement to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Denver amid the news of the U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran. Public Statement on the Conflict with Iran   February 28, 2026 Prot. N. AB 2026-0132 A Sisters and Brothers in Christ,    As news reaches us of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran and subsequent retaliatory strikes, I join with Catholics in the Archdiocese of Denver and with all people...