Luis Felipe Toniolo

Among Catholics today, interest in learning about the lives of the Saints has grown significantly. However, those who investigate the biography of the members of the nascent Catholic Church – not those of the first centuries, but of the first years and decades, those who lived with Jesus – are …

In a certain city in ancient Egypt, a shocking scene was witnessed. It was early spring, close to midnight. In several humble houses throughout the city, fresh blood was dripping from the doorposts. Fortunately, it was not from human sacrifices, but from the immolation of lambs, consummated at dusk with …

The newcomers were the subject of commentary throughout the region. Certainly, they were religious. But to what Order did they belong? Nobody knew. Some of the better informed claimed that they were disgruntled monks who, dissatisfied with their monastery, had decided to found a new house with different rules, and …

A midst the Carrara marble and Michelangelo’s frescoes, the Sistine Chapel hides a lesser-known treasure. It is a discreet gem, rendered not in fine paint but in rustic graphite. Its lines have nothing of Raphael’s elegant panels or Bernini’s monumental designs. It is a simple signature: Josquini. Not infrequently, restorers …

There are all sorts of debates. Some are sudden and momentary, the result of spontaneity, a temperamental outburst or immaturity. There are other, interminable ones, in which the representatives of both sides continue the discussion one generation after another. Arguments are finely honed, syllogisms are dismantled, but there is no …