Pope Francis today concluded a trip to Turkey where on Saturday, November 29, he participated in an ecumenical prayer in the Patriarchal Church of Saint George in Phanar, Turkey, with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. At the conclusion of this prayer, Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis each gave a brief address to one another. On Sunday, […]
Pope Francis and Giovanni Traettino On Monday, July 28, Pope Francis traveled to Caserta, Italy, and in an historical event met with nearly 350 Pentecostal Christians, among whom was the Rev. Giovanni Traettino, a friend of Pope Francis’s from his days as Cardinal Bergoglio. News stories about this visit can be found here and here. […]
On March 24 of this year we posted a guest article by Brandon Addison titled “The Quest for the Historical Church: A Protestant Assessment.” We had invited Brandon some months earlier to write an essay for Called To Communion on the topic of his choice, and we are very grateful for his generosity, trust, and […]
This is a guest post by Michael Rennier. Michael received a BA in New Testament Literature from Oral Roberts University in 2002 and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School in 2006. He served the Anglican Church in North America as the Rector of two parishes on Cape Cod, Massachusetts for five years. After […]
Robert Louis Wilken’s The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (Yale University Press, 2012) is an ambitious survey of Christian history, from one of America’s most accomplished religious historians. Wilken is William R. Kenan Professor of History of Christianity Emeritus at the University of Virginia, an associate at the St. Paul Center for […]
On Friday, April 22, 2005, I was sitting at my desk at Saint Louis University, trying to think of a good remaining reason not to be Catholic. I had been investigating the Catholic question intensely for over a year, and one by one I had been discovering that my objections were largely based on straw […]
The Scripture readings for today’s liturgy provide a biblical basis for the papacy, as John Bergsma explains. But as a Protestant, I was not able to see those verses as providing that basis, until I read Plato’s Republic. Of the various philosophical factors that helped me become Catholic, one was teaching through Plato’s Republic. I […]
Yesterday, June 29, was the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. In recent years it has become a custom for the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople to exchange official delegations on the patronal feasts of their respective sees. In this year likewise, the Orthodox sent a delegation to Rome for the feast of Sts. […]
June 4 is the feast of St. Optatus, a fourth-century bishop of Milevis, in Numidia, about ten miles from the Mediterranean Sea on the coast of northern Africa in what is now Algeria. He was a convert to the Catholic faith, and an African by birth, according to St. Jerome. He died around AD 385, […]
Today in the liturgical calendar we celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle. According to an ancient tradition, February 22 was the day Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, and gave to him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matt. 16:19) The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the chair of St. […]
