Sightings Articles

empty pews

American church | Christianity | Catholic decline

Sunday Mournings

Sunday worship was valorized as something it was not, but the “new normal” could turn out to be something that warrants renewed hope.

October 7, 2021

Pope Francis | Europe | Pope Benedict | Catholicism | Ferguson | Catholic decline

Malaise in Europe -- Martin E. Marty

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, some Americans remembered the religious and not-wholly-commercial base of this national holiday. The religious element bade citizens to look backward with thanks and forward with a spirit of newness and resolve. Yesterday,...

December 1, 2014

emergents | Catholicism | Commonweal | Vatican Council | Pope Francis | Catholic decline

Emergents' Emergencies -- Martin E. Marty

“Emerging adult,” we learn, is “a new demographic category that means either prolonged adolescence or delayed adulthood,” here meaning people of ages 18 to 23. So writes reviewer Thomas Baker, the publisher of Commonweal, the top (lay-led) Catholic m...

November 3, 2014