“Simeon the Stylite is not a character about whom we Catholics need to be apologetic.” St. Simeon faced the age-old dilemma of the religious ascetic: how to gain spiritual strength by ...

Near the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Church of St. Simeon the Stylite commemorates the 5th-century ascetic who became an ancient sensation by living atop ... surrounded by thousand-year-old votive ...