"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

While the nature of matrimony as both a natural and supernatural institution is covered in the entry on Marriage, matrimony can also be considered primarily from the point of view of its sacramental celebration and the nature of the sacramental bond.

The social teaching of the Church is based on the human person as the principle, subject and object of every social organization. Subsidiarity is one of the core principles of this teaching. This principle holds that human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the affected pesons.

Anointing of the Sick is that sacrament which is administered to strengthen Christians who are in danger of death from sickness or old age. The Apostle James refers to this sacrament when he says, "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer […]

It is not easy to describe the Trinity, let alone understand this great mystery of the Catholic Faith. Perhaps the most important thing we can say about the Trinity is that the one and only God is truly a dynamic and self-sufficient community of love, and is therefore the source, model and goal of all other love. Thus does God reveal Himself as Father, Son a […]

Abortion is the greatest single scourge of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, claiming far more innocent lives than any other threat, including war, poverty, starvation and natural disasters. This grave moral evil is also the centerpiece of the contemporary culture wars which divide most Western nations, particularly the United States, whic […]

The Rosary is one of the most widespread devotional practices in the Catholic world, and has been more often encouraged and recommended by popes through the ages than any other devotion save the Mass itself. Strongly associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and relying on the power of her intercession with her Divine Son, the Rosary makes use of a simple str […]

As soon as one understands that apologetics comes from the Greek word for defense (apologetikos), the term becomes very easy to understand. Apologetics is a branch of study which aims to explain and justify Christian doctrine, demonstrating its reasonableness in the face of objections by those who do not accept it. Doing apologetics means defending the faith […]

As the name implies, Modernism is an ideology by which religious truths, and especially Catholic teachings, are derived and interpreted in accordance with personal religious experience, under the influence of the spirit of the current age. First emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Modernism was condemned by Pope St. Pius X in 1907. It resurfa […]