It rsquo s always a strange experience to read about home while abroad mdash seeing my own country scrutinized from the outside and recognizing my pride and shame compete as my sense of self is shaped by that scrutiny As an Irishman I travelled to the United States with a sense of entitlement to t

Among our many family photographs there is one of me as a toddler beginning to take tentative first steps I am reaching out my hand to my father who is beside me looking down at me with some concern ready to grasp mine I am dressed in a light-blue winter outfit with the hood pulled up over my

In order that his Most Sovereign Majesty King George III his ministers and his army of Redcoats would become aware of something significant arising among the nations a plain-spoken farmer-lawyer from Braintree Massachusetts stood up among the delegates of the Continental Congress and offered th

It may have been hard to imagine conditions for Christians in Iraq getting much worse than they already were but two days ago they did Insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL apparently at the time only lightly armed swept through Mosul Iraq rsquo s second largest city

Immigration worries are back in the headlines after a sudden flurry of media attention to what has been a slowly building humanitarian catastrophe the increasing numbers of unaccompanied minors reaching the U S southern border some as young as 5 and 6 after a perilous crossing through Mexico fro

Top Catholic and Orthodox church officials in North America are calling on the Vatican to let married men become priests in Eastern rite Catholic churches another sign that optional celibacy could become a front-burner issue under Pope Francis Eastern rite Catholic churches have a look and feel sim