Pope Francis now faces an institutional church in need of substantial rebuilding and reform: a deeply divided church theologically; an entrenched and flawed, some would say incompetent, Vatican bureaucracy; a legacy of decades of scandals (in particular pedophilia) and of deception by members of the hierarchy; and an exodus of Catholics in Europe and America.

Perhaps it is time for the Third Vatican Council. Because Vatican III is going to be the only way sweeping change will ever take place within the Catholic Church.

Two renowned Catholic commentators discuss the challenges the church, and a new pope, will face in the early 21st century.

The leadership of any faith body impacts the way all religions do or do not interact respectfully and productively for the common good of the world.

No matter where I travel, whether it's to Louisville, Ky., Vienna, a remote island in the Caribbean, Paris, Montreal or Quebec City -- I see revamped Catholic sacred spaces and cathedrals stripped bare.

These questions come to me as, almost simultaneously, the pope resigns, America's leading newspaper reports day after day about continuing sexual abuse, homosexual culture and political intrigue in the Church, and Professor Wills, this country's most longstanding and prolific Catholic gadfly, publishes perhaps his most iconoclastic book yet about Christian faith.

VATICAN CITY — On Monday, April 4, 2005, a priest walked up to the Renaissance palazzo housing the Vatican's doctrine department and asked the d...

When Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict, virtually everyone wanted him to do well and to lead the Catholic Church toward the highest values of love and justice in the global world of faith. There was reason for hope.

It will really take a miracle, the suffusion of the College by the Holy Spirit, the Interbreathing Spirit of all life, to change the Church by election of a pope more in the tradition of Jesus and John XXIII.

Louis DeThomasis is willing to speak out against what he describes as an increasingly inflexible hierarchy, unwilling to bend or even discuss such issues as the droves of young people fleeing the Catholic Church, the difficult questions surrounding sex abuse scandals and ordaining women.

By Peggy Fletcher Stack Salt Lake Tribune/Religion News Service (RNS) Whether by accident, serendipity or divine design, four future heavyweights ...

The origin of the word and its usage in Christianity for millennia suggests something quite different from what we might initially think. And what it really means has profound implications for what it means to be a Christian in the world and how we should conceive of being "church."

It may be a critical time for Hindus, especially diasporic Hindus, to reflect on this. After all, many second-generation diasporic Hindus are neither familiar with Sanskrit nor with the vernacular language of their parents and may, consequently, opt to jettison their Hindu identities.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (Oct. 11) urged Catholics to confront the spiritual "desert" of today's secularized world and to redi...

(RNS) Fifty years ago on Thursday (Oct. 11), hundreds of elaborately robed leaders strode into St. Peter's Basilica in a massive display of solemn ecc...

We should look to the Second Vatican Council for guidance and wisdom as we seek to make our house a place where no door is ever locked, but only awaiting a knock.

AMITYVILLE, N.Y. (RNS) Fifty years after Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council to modernize the Roman Catholic Church, the legacy of tha...

VATICAN CITY -- A breakaway group of traditionalist Roman Catholics has sent the Vatican mixed messages about ending a quarter-century of schism. The...

By Alessandro Speciale Religion News Service VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican's doctrinal office said "further discussions" will be needed with the ...

Mean-spiritedness, hostility and acrimony flourish in a church that should be all about the peace and love that Jesus brought to our world. Certainly, all sides are to blame as we permit these differences to obfuscate the "Good News" of the faith.

By Joshua J. McElwee National Catholic Reporter In light of abuse crisis, Australian prelate calls for complete rethinking CHICAGO -- The roots...

The untimely new translation of the Mass is so impenetrable that one publisher just released a companion volume for priests with suggestions on where to pause and what words to emphasize, so that they prayers may be understood. Not the greatest endorsement of perceptive translation.

By Alessandro Speciale Religion News Service (RNS) The Vatican has summoned the head of a traditionalist group to Rome to assess the results of a ...