The Catholic Church has become more culturally heterogeneous than at any point in its 2,000-year history. Nearly half of the voting cardinals will come from the global south, compared with just over one-third at the 2013 conclave that elected Francis. (Meichtry & Walker, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreBingeing a series on the big screen is highly unusual, particularly as streaming businesses and movie theaters have become increasingly at odds over attracting audiences. But the unconventional distribution strategy has proved to be a win. (Masunaga, Los Angeles Times)
Read MoreThe death of Pope Francis at age 88 sets off a chain of events as Catholics around the world mourn and the Vatican begins a series of ceremonies and plans to select a new pope. (Neuman, NPR)
Read MoreThe Pope’s passing on Monday morning has thrown open a global succession race to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Yet it has also focused attention on the Vatican’s fraught relationship with an American flock that is undergoing cultural and theological changes that echo the rightward shift in the nation’s politics in the MAGA era. (Chafin & Zitner, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreChurches enjoyed bumper attendances over Easter, members of the clergy have said. Some parishes reported congregations up by half compared to recent years, buoyed by large numbers of young people turning to religion. (Evans, The Telegraph)
Read MoreAmericans’ religious preferences have generally held steady in the past five years, after a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation and concurrent declines in Protestant and Catholic identification over the prior two decades. In 2024, 45% of Americans identified as Protestant or nondenominational Christian, 21% as Catholic and 10% as another religion, with 22% not identifying with any religion. Those figures are each within one percentage point of their 2018-2020 levels. (Jones, Gallup)
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