Free stock photos of Catholic subjects.
Details: Public processions with the Blessed Sacrament became popular only when Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist was questioned. For many centuries this sacramental reality was taken for granted, but in the 16th century, overt denial of the Real Presence in the Eucharistic species came with the Protestant Reformers. In...
Details: In 1486, Isabel of Castile, patroness of the explorer Christopher Columbus, commissioned an elaborate alabaster tomb for her parents, Juan II of Castile and Isabel of Portugal. This star-shaped tomb, still standing in the center of the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, outside Burgos, was made between...
Details: Juan Martínez Montañés was one of the greatest spanish sculptors of the first half of the seventeenth century. Based in Seville, he carved numerous wooden statues and reliefs that were painted and integrated into large altar screens called retablos (English: retables) for churches in his native region or to...
Details: The Church of the Irish Martyrs was opened on 18 April 1909. Among the early Catholic settlers in the area were Irish gold-miners and it was their influence that led to the new church being dedicated to the Irish Martyrs. The church is located in the Sligo Street directly...
Details: Christ appears in the center of the principal face of the reliquary beneath the roof plaque, which depicts the hand of God flanked by two angels swinging censers. Distinguished by his cruciform nimbus, he holds a book in his left hand and raises his right hand in blessing; the...
Details: This rare devotional shrine manifests Christian belief in the miracle of the Incarnation, by which God took on human body and nature, uniting both human and divine in the person of Jesus. Closed, it is a statuette of the enthroned Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus. When opened, the...
Details: Nestled in a dramatic landscape of gorges and waterfalls, the monastery of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, from which this cloister comes, was founded in 804 by Saint William (Guilhem), legendary duke of Aquitaine and a member of the court of Charlemagne. Saint-Guilhem thrived as a pilgrim's destination on the road...
Details: The chapter house was the daily meeting place in most European monasteries and convents. The monks or nuns sat on the stone bench around the walls, as business was discussed each day and a chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict, the official code of monastic behavior, was read....
Details: This precious silver box was created to contain a relic of the martyred English saint Thomas Becket. Saint Thomas was the archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170, and he is perhaps best known for his struggles with King Henry II of England over the separation between the rights...
Details: Inscriptions on the back of this object indicate that it served as the repository for a relic believed to be a fragment of the True Cross and that it is thought to have been made for a convent of the Poor Clares, probably in Florence. It is an extraordinary...
Details: Meant to be seen from both front and back, this large Crucifix represents Jesus hanging on the Cross, but nonetheless triumphant over death: his eyes are wide open, and he wears the gold crown of the King of Heaven. Though the original church from which this image comes is...
Details: An exceptional ivory object, this diminutive booklet is unusual in that both the exterior covers, depicting scenes of the Passion, and the interior covers, containing representations of the Virgin, are carved. The religious nature of the booklet suggests that it served as an accessory for private devotion. The painted...
Details: One of the most famous ivory carvings to survive from the tenth century, this plaque depicts Christ enthroned against an open worked checkerboard background. He is blessing a model of a church presented to him by Emperor Otto the Great (r. 962–973) and a host of saints including...
Details: Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church Complex is a historic church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus at 351 North Market Street in Logan, Ohio. The current structure was built in 1897 in a Colonial Revival/Late Gothic Revival style. 🙏🏽This image is in the public domain. Free...
Details: The Chapel of the Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic chapel built into the buttes of Sedona, Arizona, run by the Diocese of Phoenix, as a part of St. John Vianney Parish in Sedona. The chapel was inspired and commissioned by local rancher and sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude, who...
Details: Built in 1938 in an Art Deco interpretation of the Romanesque Revival style to replace an earlier church built in 1861, the buff-brick St. Stephen Catholic Church was once one of four in the city of Newport, and is only one of two that remain in the city today,...
Details: This panel, most likely one of five narrative scenes representing the Passion of Christ, comes from a now dismembered altarpiece. The central panel was undoubtedly a scene of the Crucifixion. Such carvings in alabaster were frequently painted in vibrant colors with added gilding. The flesh areas of the figures...
Details: This leather-bound manuscript is a prayer book written in Gə’ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Its 144 folios features three distinct kinds of ornaments: a single full-page illumination; interlaced borders (haräg); and textual ornament, including punctuation marks and headers. The full-page illumination on folio 1v...
Details: The St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Community has come a long way from its inception, from a small Mission in Litchfield Park to one of the largest parishes in the Diocese of Phoenix. St. Thomas Aquinas mission church was the first church in Litchfield Park. Originally, mass was celebrated in...
Details: The St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Community has come a long way from its inception, from a small Mission in Litchfield Park to one of the largest parishes in the Diocese of Phoenix. St. Thomas Aquinas mission church was the first church in Litchfield Park. Originally, mass was celebrated in...
Details: The Feast of Corpus Christi procession to the church. According to Will Plazewski, the photo was taken between 1892, when the two-story wooden school (behind the trees) was built, and 1910, when construction began on the current church. From the extensive Florida postcard collection of Fr. Henry Riffle. 🙏🏽This...
Details: Requiem Masses are masses that are offered for the dead. They derive their name from the first word of the Introit, which may be traced to the Fourth Book of Esdras, one of the Apocrypha, at the passage "Expectate pastorem vestrum, requiem æternitatis dabit vobis". Memorial Day...
Details: This miniature altar is one of the most beautiful examples of French goldsmiths’ work from the period around 1400. It may have come from the abbey of Chocques (Pas-de-Calais) and doubtless belonged to someone associated with the Paris court. Seeing Christ’s tormented body, the owner could meditate on...
Details: Men of the 38th Bomb Group attend a Catholic mass held on Christmas Day, 1942, in New Guinea. The 38th Bomb Group was one of the most heroic air groups in the Pacific war, but probably the least well known. A critical component to victory in Japan, the 38th...
