NEW YORK. A serious, even lugubrious, tone and a top-flight cast add heft to the ecclesiastical melodrama “Conclave” (PG, Focus). Yet the film is fundamentally a power-struggle potboiler kept roiling by attention-grabbing plot developments — the last and most significant of which Catholic viewers will likely find uncomfortable at best.

BISMARCK, North Dakota. In 2012, when Michelle Duppong, who was about to become director of adult formation for the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, asked Jacqueline Matta Balzer if she could be her roommate, Balzer had no idea she was dealing with a possible future saint. Still, “You could just sense there was a holiness about her,” Balzer recalls.

Advent and Christmas are coming quickly. On Dec. 1, the First Sunday of Advent, Bishop James Golka will be leading the Office of Vigils at St. Mary’s Cathedral at 5 p.m. I am hoping to convince you to come join us for this beautiful prayer.

Colorado Catholics have a moral obligation to support Amendment 80. While some well-intentioned partnering organizations are opposing Amendment 80 because of a misunderstanding in the proposed Amendment’s language, the Amendment clearly states the following: “parents have the right to direct the education of their children” and “children have the right to equal opportunity to access quality education” and “each K-12 student has the right to school choice” (defined as “neighborhood, charter, private, and home schools, open enrollment options, and future innovations in education”). The language intentionally uses the word “and” to imply that all of these rights and education options are equal and are not intended to contradict another.

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Bishop Golka's Reflection on the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time