During Christianity's earliest centuries, an era of official persecution of Christians, church and state were not only separate but opposed. Then in the early fourth century, when Emperor Constantine became a Christian, the church and state began to visibly collaborate.

The issue of women priests may be a settled matter, but that doesn’t mean a woman can’t serve the church as a deacon.Celebrating the opening of the archives of her work on women in the diaconate at Loyola University Chicago’s Gannon Center for Women and Leadership, scholar Phyllis Zagano minced no words about the topic that has been her life’s project: “Women as deacons is not a concept for the fu

As we're reminded every Advent, our Catholic Christmas customs are somewhat at odds with the secular "holiday season," which starts before Thanksgiving and goes on until the last college bowl game.But even though we Catholics wait a bit to get going, we have a similarly long season of celebration, of which the "12 days," made famous by a certain 12-verse carol, are but a piece.The 12 days themselv

These are the holy people who didn’t quite make the cut—until they did.Alphonsus Rodriguez must have thought he had it made. Yes, there had been a few bumps in the road. His education had been cut short when his father died and Alphonsus had to return home to Segovia, Spain, destined to take over the family wool business, though it had been much reduced.