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    Stories of saints, biblical events, angels, and sacred places.

    Rows of saints and martyrs gathered in heaven around Christ, in Fra Angelico's early-Renaissance panel painting.
    Is All Saints Day a Holy Day of Obligation in the US?
    Yes, All Saints Day is a US Holy Day of Obligation under USCCB norms, with one exception. Here's the rule, this year's specific answer, and what it requires.
    A 17th-century Flemish still life of fish, shrimp, crab, and oysters laid out on a table, a traditional Lenten meal without meat.
    Ash Wednesday Fasting and Abstinence Rules in the US
    Who fasts, who abstains, and what each actually means on Ash Wednesday under USCCB norms — with the ages, meal rules, and exemptions spelled out plainly.
    Exterior of the EWTN Studios building in Irondale, Alabama, the campus that grew out of the garage studio Mother Angelica built in 1981.
    Mother Angelica: The Nun Who Built EWTN From a Garage
    A cloistered Poor Clare nun with no money or TV experience built the world's largest religious media network from a garage in Alabama. Her remarkable story.
    Christ raises the consecrated host above the table at the Last Supper, surrounded by the apostles, in Juan de Juanes's 16th-century painting.
    The National Eucharistic Revival: Why US Bishops Launched It
    Why the USCCB launched a multi-year Eucharistic Revival in 2022, what Catholics actually teach about the Real Presence, and how it led to the Indianapolis Congress.
    A 1917 lithograph poster titled 'Knights of Columbus,' showing a priest holding a crucifix aloft over kneeling American soldiers and sailors.
    The Knights of Columbus: History and Mission Explained
    Founded in 1882 to protect immigrant Catholic widows and orphans, the Knights of Columbus grew into the world's largest Catholic fraternal order. Here's how.
    The gold mosaic dome depicting Pentecost inside the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, showing the apostles and Mary surrounded by tongues of fire
    The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis
    The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis holds 41.5 million glass mosaic tesserae, installed over 76 years in a Byzantine-Romanesque church named for Saint Louis IX.
    A 1901 photograph of the ruined interior of the Great Stone Church at Mission San Juan Capistrano, showing its collapsed roof, standing archway, and tiered altar niches open to the sky.
    Mission San Juan Capistrano
    Founded in 1776 by Junípero Serra, this California mission's Great Stone Church lies in earthquake ruins, while swallows and an older chapel keep its memory alive.
    Late-afternoon sunlight on the stone exterior of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, with its bell tower and bare autumn trees.
    The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, Stockbridge
    In the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, a Polish nun's visions found their North American home — the story of Eden Hill and its annual Divine Mercy Sunday crowds.
    Interior of the circular Coliseum church at the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, showing the sanctuary, high altar, and tiered seating.
    National Shrine of the North American Martyrs, Auriesville
    On a hillside above the Mohawk River, pilgrims fill a round, 6,000-seat church built where three Jesuit missionaries were tortured and killed in the 1640s.
    A formal black-and-white photograph of Father Stanley Rother, a priest with glasses and short dark hair, wearing a Roman collar.
    Blessed Stanley Rother
    An Oklahoma farm boy who nearly flunked out of seminary over Latin became the Church's first US-born martyr, shot dead in his own Guatemalan rectory in 1981.
    Black-and-white 1966 photograph of Chaplain Vincent Capodanno, in Marine Corps utility uniform, standing and reading from a prayer book while a circle of kneeling Marines listens during a field prayer service in Vietnam.
    Fr. Vincent Capodanno, "The Grunt Padre"
    A Maryknoll missionary who became a Marine chaplain in Vietnam, Vincent Capodanno died giving last rites to wounded men under enemy machine-gun fire in 1967.
    A sepia-toned early twentieth-century studio portrait of Nicholas Black Elk in a suit and tie, seated beside his young daughter and his wife, who wears a traditional beaded and quilled Lakota dress.
    Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk
    A Lakota holy man who survived Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee later spent fifty years as a Catholic catechist — his cause for sainthood opened in 2017.
    A black-and-white portrait photograph of Father Augustus Tolton wearing a biretta and clerical collar, circa the 1890s.
    Venerable Augustus Tolton
    Born enslaved in Missouri, rejected by every American seminary for his race, he had to cross the Atlantic to become the priest no U.S. diocese would train.
    A black-and-white studio portrait photograph of Father Michael J. McGivney, a young priest in clerical collar, taken before 1890.
    Venerable Michael McGivney, Founder of the Knights of Columbus
    A 29-year-old parish priest in New Haven started a mutual-aid fund so Catholic immigrant widows weren't left destitute — it grew into the Knights of Columbus.
    Exterior view of the small octagonal Gnadenkapelle (Chapel of Mercy) in Altötting, Bavaria, with its dark steeple and copper-green roof surrounded by linden trees
    Our Lady of Altötting: Bavaria's Black Madonna and Its Heart Crypt
    A small linden-wood Madonna, a 1489 miracle, and silver urns of royal hearts make Altötting's Gnadenkapelle Germany's most important Marian pilgrimage site.
    The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Aparecida, São Paulo, Brazil, one of the largest Catholic churches in the world by capacity
    Our Lady of Aparecida: Brazil's Patroness Found in a Fishing Net
    Three fishermen hauling an empty net in 1717 pulled up a broken clay statue — and their catch turned miraculous. Now Brazil's patroness, enshrined in a vast basilica
    The Basilica of Our Lady of Miracles in Caacupé, Paraguay, with its distinctive modern Byzantine-influenced dome and towers
    Our Lady of Caacupé: Paraguay's Patroness Carved from a Tree
    The legend of Our Lady of Caacupé, carved from the tree that sheltered a fleeing Guarani man, and the December pilgrimage that draws Paraguay's largest crowds.
    The Basilica of Our Lady of Charity at El Cobre, near Santiago de Cuba
    Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre: Cuba's Patroness from the Bay of Nipe
    Three men battling a storm in the Bay of Nipe found a small floating statue of Mary around 1612 — she became Cuba's patroness, visited by Pope Francis in 2015.
    The dark-faced statue of Our Lady of Einsiedeln dressed in an ornate embroidered gown, set within a gilded Baroque niche surrounded by carved angels and golden rays
    Our Lady of Einsiedeln: Switzerland's Black Madonna
    A hermit's murder, a legend of Christ's own consecration, and centuries of candle smoke built the most visited Marian shrine in German-speaking Europe.
    The façade of the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe in Extremadura, Spain
    Our Lady of Guadalupe of Extremadura: The Original Black Madonna
    Before Mexico's famous tilma, a shepherd's vision in medieval Spain led to a Black Madonna statue that Columbus prayed before — and gave the New World her name.