Faith. Service. Law.

1 John — “God Is Love,” the Antichrists, and the Verse That Was Never There

The First Letter of John gives us “God is love,” the antichrists, and the Bible's most famous fake verse. A Catholic reads 1 John and its road into the canon.

The Letter to Philemon — A Runaway Slave, the Shortest Letter Paul Wrote, and Scripture's Quiet Case Against Slavery

The Letter to Philemon: Paul, the runaway slave Onesimus, and 'no longer a slave but a brother.' A Catholic look at the shortest Pauline letter, slavery, and its road to canon.

Pope Saint Anterus: The Nineteenth Pope, a Forty-Day Reign, and the Greek Tombstone That Outlived His Legend

Anterus is the nineteenth pope (235–236): a forty-day reign, the first pope laid in the Crypt of the Popes, and a broken Greek epitaph that calls him bishop, not martyr.

Pope Saint Callixtus I: The Sixteenth Pope, the Slave Who Wore the Keys, and the Scandal of Mercy

Callixtus I is the sixteenth pope (c. 217–222): a former slave, convict, and cemetery administrator whose policy of readmitting grave sinners after penance scandalized the rigorists—and won.

Pope Saint Cornelius: The Twenty-First Pope, the Antipope Novatian, and the Church's Power to Forgive

Cornelius, the twenty-first pope (251–253), faced the rigorist antipope Novatian—and staked the Church's authority on its power to forgive the lapsed after penance.

Pope Saint Dionysius: The Twenty-Fifth Pope, the Two Dionysii, and the Trinity Before Nicaea

Dionysius, the twenty-fifth pope (259–268): the first pope not venerated as a martyr, who rebuilt Rome after persecution and defined the Trinity before Nicaea.