Just a few days after a Malaysian court ruling allowing a Catholic newspaper to use the word Allah to refer to God seemed to offer the nation rsquo s minority Christians a small civil victory the government has reinistated its ldquo Allah rdquo ban among non-Muslims Malaysian officials are appar

On this week s podcast Drew Christiansen S J offers an introduction to Reinhold Niebuhr the mid-20th century theologian and public intellectual who has been invoked by David Brooks and others as a major influence on President Obama s foreign policy Father Christiansen argues that the pundits g

When writing yesterday rsquo s post I had not yet read the English translation of the Holy Father rsquo s Address to the Curia delivered annually just before Christmas and serving as the ecclesiastical equivalent of the queen rsquo s speech from the throne or president rsquo s state of the union a

In this week s New York Times magazine Mark Leibovich profiles Florida rsquo s upcoming Republican primary in which the sometimes-popular and one-time front runner Governor Charlie Crist is struggling to stay ahead of tea-party poster boy Mark Rubio The piece details the rise of this growing thou

You may have seen that Art Clokey the creator of Gumby and Pokey died this weekend at the age of 88 nbsp Most of the nbsp obituaries including this nbsp extensive one nbsp today at The New York Times focused on his more-famous creations the green man and his little red horse who stop-

The Liturgy Wars are back although I suspect they never really left Yesterday Pope Benedict celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel where the altar faces the great mural of the Last Judgment by Michelangelo That is the Pope presided ad orientem or facing away from the people The liturgy in the