Glad You Asked

St. Augustine of Hippo, the fourth century theologian, philosopher, and doctor of the church, shaped Christian theology in myriad ways. Multiple Christian denominations draw heavily on Augustine's ideas about grace, original sin, free will, and the trinity. And now, with the election of Pope Leo XIV, an Augustinian priest is steering the entire global Catholic Church.  But one area of Augustine's...

Conversations among Catholics about trans people and the church often center on questions of inclusion and belonging in relation to church life and teachings. Can trans people be baptized into the church or partake in other sacraments? Should trans Catholics be allowed to join religious orders? The conversations often proceed as though trans Catholics are fundamentally a problem to be solved.  Eve...

The Catholic Church, albeit not a democratic nation-state, has one of the most long-standing voting traditions in the world. When a pope dies, their successor is chosen by election. However, only a few Catholics—the cardinals of the church—participate. And the Catholic magisterium teaches that even though humans vote, it's the Holy Spirit guiding the process. Even though the pope is the head of st...

According to the gospel of Matthew, shortly after Jesus was born an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee with his family to Egypt, since King Herod was going to try to kill the new baby. They stayed there, according to Christian tradition, until Herod had died and it was safe to return. This incident, popularly known as the "flight to Egypt," has inspired an array of artistic de...

Belief in a literal six-day creation, including a literal Adam and Eve, is more associated with evangelical Christianity than with Catholicism. Most Catholic schools teach evolutionary theory as the best and most reliable account of the origin of life and see no conflict between this and orthodox Catholic faith. At the same time, some Catholics still promote a creationist view on the origins of hu...

Nearly a century ago, a Spanish priest named Josemaría Escrivá founded a religious movement intended to summon Christians of all races, ages, and social classes to renew the world, not by separating themselves from it, but by making their everyday lives holy.  Today, the group Escriva founded, known as Opus Dei ("Work of God") is a highly respected group with approximately 90,000 members, active i...

Christian history has multiple stories of people who felt called by God to separate themselves from the bustle of society and live alone, often in remote places. In the first centuries of Christianity, the desert fathers and mothers went into the wilderness seeking a simple life of spirituality and prayer. In the Byzantine Empire there were the stylites, or pillar-saints, who lived atop columns an...

The Bible is full of vivid, fascinating characters: heroes and antiheroes, tricksters and villains. One of the most memorable biblical villains is Queen Jezebel, wife of King Ahab in Kings 1 and 2. Jezebel shows up in multiple stories: persecuting the prophet Elijah, trying to institute the worship of the god Ba'al, conniving to steal a vineyard, and finally dying a gruesome death. She is mentione...

As of March 2025, Elon Musk, the richest person in the world according to Bloomberg , was valued to be worth 311 billion dollars. To help put this quantity in perspective: In order for the average middle-class person earning around $45,000 a year to earn even $1 billion, they would have to devote all their time to work, while spending nothing, for over 21,000 years—that is, longer than human histo...

In the United States, nativity scenes are part of the ordinary landscape of Christmas—even in secular spaces. You might see a blow-up nativity scene, all in garish colors, in front of a neighborhood store. Or in church, traditional statuary depicting European-looking characters. Some homes and religious organizations feature nativity scenes from around the world, with the holy family in diverse cu...

Often, Catholics refer to Mary with the various honorifics we have attached to her over the centuries: Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, or Queen of Heaven. When we imagine her, we may think of famous paintings representing her as a queen, crowned and throned, holding baby Jesus. While these titles all highlight important theological truths about Mary, and our religious art helps us venerate her as t...

It's difficult to avoid artificial intelligence these days. When searching on Google or reading product reviews, there's a good chance that you'll be offered the option to read an AI-generated summary. Or maybe an AI tool will offer to write your work email for you. Savvy users are typically able to detect the errors in AI summaries, but even the most cautious and informed person might find it dif...

Even 700 years after his death, St. Thomas Aquinas is still one of most influential theologians in the history of the Catholic Church. The Dominican friar, philosopher, and theologian wrote extensively about morals, liturgy, the sacraments, humanity, and the nature of God. He drew on multiple non-Christian and pre-Christian traditions to articulate the relationship between natural reason and revea...

Religious nationalism is on the rise, both in the United States and globally. While this poses multiple challenges to justice work, it also raises theoretical questions for Christians, including the question of how Catholics should understand the relationship between church and political powers. For centuries, when monarchy was the default, Catholics argued about this. Should the pope control the...

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). This verse, sometimes called the Great Commission, includes a mandate to perform baptisms. But does that mean Jesus was telling everyone to go out and baptize? In the gospel passage, Jesus is speaking only to the eleven men who were closest to him, somet...

In times of difficulty and strife, it's easy to feel hopeless. Sometimes it's personal loss or tragedy, sometimes it's climate catastrophe. Sometimes it's the injustice meted out by authoritarian, extremist regimes. Sometimes it's the weight of depression, anxiety, and trauma. Christian mandates to rejoice and be glad can feel ridiculous, even insulting, to those who see no cause for joy. When the...

Historically, nationalism has often turned out to be a bad idea. The most obvious examples of nationalism leading to atrocities include the Nazi regime in Germany and Benito Mussolini's fascist dictatorship in Italy, but today's geopolitical scene involves a variety of problematic nationalistic movements, including in India, Turkey, Brazil, and Hungary.  Even though nationalism frequently leads to...

Every year at Halloween in the United States, amidst the usual vampires, witches, wizards, and superheroes, you may see a few costumes inspired by the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.  If you aren't familiar with this tradition, you might wonder about the significance of the floral crowns and beautifully painted skulls. Although the movie Coco recently brought Día de lo...

Every presidential election year, Catholics have the same debates: Which candidate is more in line with Catholic teachings? Is it a sin to vote for a certain candidate or support a certain party? What if none of the candidates reflect Catholic teaching? Various voter guides circulate, few of them the same. And inevitably, election season also becomes the season of misinformation, as media personal...

The social media trend of women who define themselves as "tradwives" has been growing for some time. You might be searching for a bread recipe or looking for crafts to do with your children, and suddenly you find yourself watching an Instagram reel featuring a young white woman in vintage 1950s clothing, standing in a beautiful kitchen, and talking about the joy of embracing traditional gender rol...

To many practicing Catholics, terms like queer theology might seem overly academic or unhelpful. Does queer theology refer to theology done by and for people who are LGBTQ+? Is it focused primarily on arguing for inclusion of queer people and perspectives in the church? Or is it something arcane and academic, along the lines of queer theory? And why should people who don't identify as queer care w...

Over the past two years, the Glad You Asked podcast has answered more than 50 of your top questions about Catholic history, scripture, and theology. Things like: Do dogs go to heaven? Do angels really have wings? And did Jesus have to die on the cross? Hosts Emily Sanna and Rebecca Bratten Weiss have spoken with dozens of teachers, theologians, activists, and other experts on these and others of t...

These days, when Catholics talk about someone being a saint, this usually has nothing to do with signs or wonders, but with a life of heroic virtue. Further back in church history, however, stories of the saints are often filled with anecdotes about the miraculous. Some stories tell of miraculous healings or rescues; others tell of saints levitating or flying through the air.   "Yes, but those wer...

As co-founder of both the Catholic Worker newspaper and the movement of the same name, Dorothy Day is probably the most widely-known social justice Catholic in the modern American church. Even if you haven't read Day's writing, you've probably seen some of her more popular quotes reminding Catholics that living the gospel has a socio-political component. You may have read something from the newspa...

When Catholics argue about the more controversial teachings of the church, it's not unusual for someone to try to shut the conversation down by reminding everyone that debate is pointless since the church never changes. If you don't like a specific doctrine, well, too bad, since it's not going anywhere. The Catholic Church is the living repository of revealed truth so it's always been right and is...