Catholic

Macabre symbols of death and mummies on display set the tone of this Italian purgatory church.

The masses at this church incorporate enough moonshine and animal sacrifice that they are no longer recognizably Catholic.

Saint Joseph was said to heal the deaf and blind, but it was a much smaller miracle that got him canonized.

A Catholicism-themed restaurant where sacrilege is on the menu.

This mysterious underground cave in Shropshire dates back to the 18th or 19th century.

The medieval castle built as headquarters for the Pope's secretive Knights Templar.

On a dusty county road sit the ruins of a ghost town's abandoned church.

A 400-year-old church covered floor to ceiling in ex-voto offerings from the faithful.

This Mississippi seminary was the first in America to train Black Catholic priests.

This glass-stain Mary attracted thousands of pilgrims until her head was shattered by a vandal with a slingshot.

What this Good Friday parade lacks in baroque filigree it makes up in somber gothic imagery.

This dilapidated castle-like structure overlooks the Hudson River at one of its widest points and was once home to nuns.

The world's largest church atop a political fault line.

The mummified heart of a saint lives on in this church—after a brief hiatus when it was stolen.

When the imprisoned pope's remains were finally returned to the Vatican, his heart stayed behind in France.