During the 2008 Republican National Convention shouts of Drill Baby Drill were heard from the galleries and also from the podium They were referring to the idea of drilling for oil off America rsquo s coastlines This was presented as a relatively easy and thoroughly American way of dealing wi

In a recent episode of the animated hit ldquo South Park rdquo the steady stream of abuse scandals currently rocking the Catholic church became a recurring punchline When asked a question that elicits an obvious yes notoriously insensitive protag Eric Cartman trots out the ldquo Is the Pope Ca

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush the son and brother of the two presidents of that name has courageously come out against the new anti-immigration law in Arizona It places a significant burden on local law enforcement and you have civil liberties issues that are significant as well Bush said i

Most parents are concerned about their children s exposure to objectionable media content which is too-often readily available on TV or the Internet But would more stringent government regulation of SpongeBob or South Park really help Well according 58 percent of parents surveyed in a recently r

Here s an early peak at next week s podcast an interview with Stanley Hauerwas the Duke University scholar who was named America s best theologian by Times magazine in 2001 Best Hauerwas demurred is not a theological category Hauerwas discusses his new memoir Hannah s Child which dea

In his Web-only article for America Cul-de-Sac Catholicism Nicholas P Cafardi asked why the U S bishops conference fought health care reform to the end even when the president signed an executive order pledging that the new bill would not utlitize public funds to pay for abortions Now three

Huffington Post over the next few weeks will be excerpting a chapter nbsp from my book The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything on the question of experiencing God in our desires and longings nbsp Many people say that they wish that they had a personal experience of God I could believe in G

Far be it from me to speak ill of someone who writes kindly about my book and provides a link to Amazon so readers can buy it A blessing on Tim Fernholz But he has issued a reply to my article last week which was in turn a reply to his article in Newsweek in which he said me and Peggy Noonan wer

I lived for one year in Fort Defiance Ariz on the Navajo reservation about a half hour south of Navajo NM where Sister Marguerite Bartz was killed last November During my time on the reservation I often interacted with a Sister of the Blessed Sacrament who like Bartz strove for peace and j

I know very little about comic-book culture--other than the obvious stuff what Kryptonite does what Wolverine s blades are made of and why with great power come great responsibility nbsp Jim McDermott former associate editor and current film student on the other hand knows a lot nbsp And I

In light of the charged debate surrounding the troubling new immigration law in Arizona it is worth revisiting John J Savant s article from October 26 Imagining the Immigrant Savant s prescient insight was that the nation s anti-immigrant fervor is fundamentally a failure of imagination The A

Normally it is better to put pins in your eyes than to watch a congressional hearing But today is not a normal day Today executives from Goldman Sachs the Wall Street investment firm recently indicted by the SEC will be testifying before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and

Chastity is another way to love, and, as such, has a great deal to teach everyone.

Many Christian churches celebrate annually ldquo laity Sunday The Catholic Church every October celebrates ldquo world mission Sunday While not in favor of continually adding special themes to Sunday feasts I think a case could be made for linking Ascension Thursday to the mission of the lait

Now I wasn t there and it s possible that these quotes from Catholic News Service can be taken out of context but the comments below betray a certain consistency with other recent episcopal responses to the physical and sexual abuse of Catholic children and the media and public reaction to same th

Over at Catholic Digest Editor in Chief Dan Connors recently wrote a thought-provoking article in which he expresses a frustration with clericalism arguing that the laity needs to look at the possibility of its own complicity in the abuse scandal The crisis and who is to blame is as he says in

I ve already blogged about Matt Malone s article on the upcoming U K elections but allow me to plug our podcast on the same subject Matt helped coordinate America s coverage of the U S elections in 2008 so his take on the elections in Britain are particularly interesting The British media for

There is an important article by Joseph Bottum at The Weekly Standard com on the recent ldquo odd hysteria rdquo that is the media rsquo s response and role in the recent and revived claims regarding sexual abuse by priests and cover-ups of this abuse by some in the Church rsquo s leadership Th

Washington was consumed this weekend with one question When Congress completes work on the financial reform legislation should it next take up comprehensive immigration reform first or climate change legislation The discussion has shown precisely why so many people say they have little respect fo