Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 7 March 1274), was a Doctor of the Church, Philosopher, Theologian, Jurist, Dominican Friar, and Priest. Known as Doctor Angelicus "Angelic Doctor," and the Doctor Communis "Universal Doctor" his writings serve as a defense and proof of the validity of Christ's authority over all. The Summa contra Gentiles (also known as Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium, "Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers"). The Summa contra Gentiles consists of four books. The structure of Saint Thomas's work is designed to proceed from general philosophical arguments for monotheism, to which Muslims and Jews are likely to consent even within their own respective religious traditions, before progressing to the discussion of specifically Christian doctrine.
Book I begins with general questions of truth and natural reason, and from chapter 10 investigates the concept of a monotheistic God. Chapters 10 to 13 are concerned with the existence of God, followed by a detailed investigation of God's properties (chapters 14 to 102). When demonstrating a Truth about God which can be known through reason, St. Thomas gives multiple arguments, each proving the same Truth in a different way.
Whether you are a history enthusiast, a student of religion, or simply curious about the impact of the Roman Catholic Church on the world, this playlist is designed to provide an informative and engaging journey through its captivating past. Subscribe to the Contemplating History channel for more educational content and immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of history.
08 April 2026
Magisterium AI: Can Faith Shape the Future of Artificial Intelligence?
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, Church leaders and Catholic technologists say the question is no longer whether AI will shape the future—but whether faith can help shape AI itself. EWTN News takes a closer look at Magisterium AI, what its creators say sets it apart, and why the Church believes engagement is critical. Vatican Correspondent Valentina Di Donato reports.
The Life of Her Majesty the Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia ~ (1847–1928)
From The Romanian Monarchist
Maria Feodorovna (Russian: Мария Фёдоровна, romanised: Mariya Fyodorovna; 26 November 1847 – 13 October 1928), known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was Empress of Russia from 1881 to 1894 as the wife of Emperor Alexander III. She was the fourth child and second daughter of Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Maria’s eldest son, Nicholas, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. Maria lived for 10 years after Bolshevik functionaries killed Nicholas and his immediate family in 1918.
Faith, Science and the Search for Wisdom
With Fr James Brent, OP, PhD, STL, Asst Professor of Philosophy, Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.
How the Rite of Confession Is Different in the Byzantine Tradition
I've seldom had the opportunity to confess in my own Rite, but I think I prefer the anonymity of the Roman Rite. In the East, there is no hiding!
From Aleteia
By Philip Kosloski
The sacrament is performed in a slightly different way than what Roman Catholics are used to.
The sacrament of confession has a long history in the Catholic Church and has been practiced in different ways throughout the centuries.
It did not start out in the exact same way that many Roman Catholics are familiar with in today's world.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers a succinct history of the sacrament of confession, explaining how, “During the first centuries the reconciliation of Christians who had committed particularly grave sins after their Baptism (for example, idolatry, murder, or adultery) was tied to a very rigorous discipline, according to which penitents had to do public penance for their sins, often for years, before receiving reconciliation. To this ‘order of penitents’ (which concerned only certain grave sins), one was only rarely admitted and in certain regions only once in a lifetime” (CCC 1447).
East and West
Eventually, a more private form of confession was adopted by both Eastern and Western churches, but some traces of this earlier tradition can be found in current Byzantine practices.
For example, while Roman Catholics are accustomed to confessing their sins to a priest in a separate room or box called a "confessional," many Eastern Christians confess their sins in the front of the church, kneeling before a priest at the iconostasis.
This will also often include a lectern that has a Gospel book on it and a cross. The icon behind the priest will normally be an icon of Jesus Christ, emphasizing the reality that the penitent is confessing their sins to Jesus, and not the priest.
Furthermore, confession in the Byzantine tradition, sometimes called the "Holy Mystery of Repentance," stresses the need to receive spiritual guidance from a "spiritual father." The priest is seen more as a spiritual director, guiding the soul to virtue, often making the rite of confession a more lengthy affair. It's less common to see the Roman "confessional line" in a Byzantine church, where penitents line up for a quick confession of sins. However, there are many variations among churches and this can happen on occasion.
At the conclusion of confession, the priest will lay the end of his stole on the top of the penitent's head, saying the words of absolution. Below is one example of a prayer the priest might pray (the prayers will vary according to the particular Eastern Rite).
The Lord God through Nathan the Prophet forgave David his sin, and the adulteress weeping at his feet, and Peter shedding bitter tears for his betrayal, and the Publican and the Prodigal Son. May this same Lord and God through me a sinner, forgive you, N., all the sins of your life in this world and in the world to come. And may He make you stand uncondemned at his awesome tribunal for He is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
Confession is also recommended most often during the seasons of fasting in the Byzantine calendar, though this is also common in the Roman Rite as well.
While there does exist some variations in the Catholic Church in how confession is performed, the essence remains the same. Sins are confessed and mercy is given through the hands of a priest, but ultimately by the power of God. It is God who forgives sins, using priests as instruments of mercy.
7 Medieval Building Secrets Modern Architects Refuse to Use
From Medieval Way
Explore forgotten construction methods from Scandinavia that created durable, rot-resistant homes without modern sealants. Discover how techniques like log interlocking and natural waterproofing provided centuries of structural integrity.
Half of all residential buildings in the United States show visible mould or detectable mould odour. That is according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The number one killer of residential structures is not fire, not wind, and not earthquakes — it is moisture. And the modern building industry's answer to moisture is a plastic sheet stapled to the inside of your wall. A vapour barrier that traps water inside the very structure it is supposed to protect. Meanwhile, in Norway, wooden stave churches built over 800 years ago are still standing. No plastic. No vapor barriers. No HVAC systems running around the clock. Seven construction techniques that Scandinavian builders used every single day have been completely written out of the modern building code. Techniques that kept structures dry, warm, and standing for centuries in some of the harshest weather on Earth. By the end of this video, you will understand why your house is rotting from the inside out while theirs never did.
Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | April
The British Museum Has Something Canterbury Can't Explain
From Totus Catholica
In the British Museum, there is a mosaic made around 350 AD, found buried under a farm field in Dorset in 1963, that Canterbury can't explain. At its centre is the oldest known portrait of Christ in all of Britain, made by a Catholic, in a Catholic home, during Catholic worship. 1,200 years before the Church of England even existed. Tertullian wrote around 200 AD that the haunts of the Britons had been subjugated to Christ. In 314 AD, three British bishops attended the Council of Arles in full communion with Rome. The Water Newton treasure is the oldest Christian liturgical silver in the entire Roman Empire. The 106th Archbishop of Canterbury just took her seat. But the first Christians on that soil were already kneeling, facing Rome. CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Mosaic Nobody in the Press Knows About 2:08 Tertullian and Origen: Catholic Britain Before Augustine 3:03 314 AD: Three British Bishops at the Council of Arles 4:59 Henry VIII: The Marital Crisis That Cut the Apostolic Chain 6:14 1992 to 2026: Three Blows That Made Reunion Impossible 7:14 GAFCON Abuja: The Anglican Communion Fractures From Within 8:41 Anglicanorum Coetibus: The Open Door Rome Built in 2009 🌍 Website: https://totuscatholica.org/ 📿 Rosary Guide: https://totuscatholica.org/rosary ✉️ Contact: https://totuscatholica.org/contact 🔍 Examination of Conscience: https://catholicexaminationofconscien...
In the British Museum, there is a mosaic made around 350 AD, found buried under a farm field in Dorset in 1963, that Canterbury can't explain. At its centre is the oldest known portrait of Christ in all of Britain, made by a Catholic, in a Catholic home, during Catholic worship. 1,200 years before the Church of England even existed. Tertullian wrote around 200 AD that the haunts of the Britons had been subjugated to Christ. In 314 AD, three British bishops attended the Council of Arles in full communion with Rome. The Water Newton treasure is the oldest Christian liturgical silver in the entire Roman Empire. The 106th Archbishop of Canterbury just took her seat. But the first Christians on that soil were already kneeling, facing Rome. CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Mosaic Nobody in the Press Knows About 2:08 Tertullian and Origen: Catholic Britain Before Augustine 3:03 314 AD: Three British Bishops at the Council of Arles 4:59 Henry VIII: The Marital Crisis That Cut the Apostolic Chain 6:14 1992 to 2026: Three Blows That Made Reunion Impossible 7:14 GAFCON Abuja: The Anglican Communion Fractures From Within 8:41 Anglicanorum Coetibus: The Open Door Rome Built in 2009 🌍 Website: https://totuscatholica.org/ 📿 Rosary Guide: https://totuscatholica.org/rosary ✉️ Contact: https://totuscatholica.org/contact 🔍 Examination of Conscience: https://catholicexaminationofconscien...
Priest Who United Franciscans and Dominicans Dies on Easter
Blessed Repose and Memory Eternal! It was a fitting life, since St Francis and St Dominic were friends, though dedicated to different apostolates.
As a Franciscan priest who lived with the homeless, he loved St. Francis. But he founded a new congregation with Dominicans: The Community of the Lamb.
From Aleteia
By Tom Hoopes
As a Franciscan priest who lived with the homeless, he loved St. Francis. But he founded a new congregation with Dominicans: The Community of the Lamb.
A priest died on Easter Sunday — which was fitting after a life marked by the Christian paradox. He was a friend to popes and cardinals — but also lived with the homeless; he was a Franciscan — but also worked with Dominicans to found a new congregation.
Father Jean-Claude Chupin, OFM, died on April 5, 2026, at the motherhouse of the Community of the Lamb, which he helped found in the 1970s. He was 94.
When he faced illness in 2023, he was called by Pope Francis, who told him, “I know you’re ill, and I am praying for you.”
Brother Claude, who had helped bring the Community of the Lamb to Argentina, answered in Spanish, “Thank you! I’m praying for you too, as you always request.”
The religious congregation’s motherhouse is in St. Pierre, France, but it has locations in eight countries. Its members are known for living among the poor, going door-to-door to beg for food, and for their beautiful liturgies which were developed using elements of Eastern and Western Catholic rites. While he remained a Franciscan, Father Jean-Claude accompanied the new congregation from its beginnings, gaining a formal role in 1994.
Poverty was his great love
Father Jean-Claude’s life was spent very close to the poor — so much so, he was homeless for a decade.
“For St. Francis, it was the leper. For Brother Jean-Claude, it was the homeless,” explained one of the sister's of the community. After years of requesting permission, his Franciscan order gave him the green light to live with the homeless at age 50 in 1982, while continuing his work with the Community of the Lamb by letter and through the congregation’s chapter meetings.
On the streets, he saw it as his mission to listen to the poor with love rather than preaching any particular message. As he put it in 1989, “Prostrating before the Poor One but not prostrating before a poor one is a contradiction that we must try absolutely to remove from our life.”
Father Jean-Claude once said, “Why is God poor? Because he is love. And love means that he gives himself; he keeps nothing for himself.”
He returned to life with the homeless on a mission later in his life, in 2005 at age 73. He and his companions asked a group of Afghani refugees to stay with them. “It would be an honor to have you,” they said. “Don’t worry about getting cardboard boxes. We can offer them to you, because you’re our guests!”
The center of his life was the Gospel
At the end of his life, St. John the Evangelist is said to have said just the word “Love” in his homilies, summing up his message. Father Jean-Claude would say, “The Gospel! The Gospel! The Gospel!” to begin each of his homilies.
“He never strayed from the Gospel. From the moment he settled in Saint-Pierre, he spent every morning poring over the Gospel,” said the Prior of the Little Brothers of the lamb, Father François-Dominique.
The formation of the Little Sisters and Little Brothers of the Lamb consisted, in part, with listening to and transcribing Father Jean-Claude’s homilies.
One “honorary member” of the Community of the Lamb says he knows why. Kansas City Kansas Emeritus Archbishop Joseph Naumann said, “I personally found Father Jean-Claude’s method of manducating the Word of God very helpful. … It was a tool that allowed the Gospel to penetrate the heart.”
Archbishop Naumann’s retirement residence is a small house built beside the Little Brothers of the Lamb home in a poor neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas.
He was called from childhood
Jean-Claude was born September 29, 1931. In the early 1940s, he had an experience (he was 11 or 12 years old) that he vividly remembered. He woke up on his bed by the fireplace of his home in Western France, and he was crying.
When his parents asked him what was wrong, he said that St. Francis had called him to follow him, and then he woke up to find a Franciscan scapular on his pillow.
Though they told him it fell off the mantelpiece, the boy was convinced it was a sign from God.
“St. Francis was giving me a sign of friendship,” he told a community member in a 2012 recorded interview. He would forget the episode for years but remember it a long time later, when “doubts of all kinds have crossed my path,” he said.
He would often tell the story of a second experience of his calling, when he became convinced of his vocation on a sailboat off the coast of France.
“I entered the Franciscans with my eyes truly closed, headfirst, and when I emerged from the water, I was wearing the Franciscan habit, and my heart was Franciscan,” he said.
Later, he heard a call within his call
“Right from the start, St. Francis seemed to me an evangelical man who could truly lead me to Jesus,” he said. St. Francis also led him to St. Dominic.
Church traditions say the two 13th-century founders of mendicant orders met once and embraced. In the early 1970s, after the Second Vatican Council, the two embraced again, symbolically, at the creation of the Community of the Lamb, when a group of Roman Dominican sisters were sent to Vézelay, France, from Paris.
Father Jean-Claude preached a retreat to the sisters, including their founder, Little Sister Marie (the community does not use surnames, or the titles “Mother” and “Father,” using “little brother” and “little sister” for all members). He also met a new Dominican priest who was close to the order — the Austrian Father Christoph Schönborn, who would later become the editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and rise to the level of a cardinal in the Catholic Church.
“Little Sister Marie and he were very united, yet at the same time corrected one another,” Cardinal Schönborn said. “This is something that has contributed to the wellbeing of the Community and cultivated a spirit of freedom.”
Cardinal Schönborn will preside over his funeral Mass.
Father Jean-Claude died on Easter at Vespers as the members of the Community of the Lamb surrounded him, singing the Magnificat — a beautiful end to a beautiful life.
~
Read more about the history of the foundation and find out about the Community of the Lamb here.
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