The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments and individuals to operate as if every day brings with it a new contingency plan. The Catholic Church is no different, in a sense, at least when it comes ...

In “The Guilty Vicarage,” an essay on detective fiction, W.H. Auden argues that the most successful detective novels take ...

The new language for the priest’s absolution is allowed as of Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Priests must use the new language starting on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 16, the first Sunday after ...

NCR interviews James O'Toole, whose new book, For I Have Sinned, details the growth and eventual decline of confession in the ...

Visitors were invited to pose questions to the AI Jesus, viewed on a monitor behind a latticework screen. (Courtesy of the Catholic Church of the City of Lucerne, CC BY) This autumn, a Swiss Catholic ...

When a Roman Catholic priest gives the “last rites,” he says, “I absolve you from all censures and sins.… I grant to you plenary indulgence and remission of all sins and I bless you.” Some Protestant ...

Catholic bishops in northeast Italy have said that the risk of illness amid the ongoing pandemic constitutes a "grave necessity" permitting priests to confer the Sacrament of Reconciliation under the ...

Rituals of purification or moral cleansing are common in many religious traditions. For example, ritual washing before prayer, public worship, (re)inclusion, or other religious activities is present ...

The dome of St. Peter’s Basilica is seen through trees in the Vatican Gardens. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.) Listen ROME — In places particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and with severe ...

Pope Francis' decision that during the Jubilee Year of Mercy the faithful can receive absolution from priests of the Society of St. Pius X is the most recent attempt at reconciliation with the ...

This autumn, a Swiss Catholic church installed an AI Jesus in a confessional to interact with visitors. The installation was a two-month project in religion, technology and art titled "Deus in Machina ...