For everyone who said What s the big deal when the earlier Vatican document about the Tridentine Mass was promulgated comes a report from Catholic News Service Remember that even if there is and this is debatable not a groundswell of interest on the part of the American Catholic laity

After months of relatively good news from Iraq with lower levels of violence and fewer casualties this past week brought two bad pieces of news First the Iraqi government and the U S government have failed to agree to terms for a new security arrangement that replace the current UN mandate due

Sad news from Washington today Tim Russert host of NBC s Meet the Press died of a heart attack at 58 The CNN Report is here Despite an acerbic style in interviews and aggressive personality Russert has been one of political television s class acts over the past two decades He was als

The frontline in the abortion wars is no longer the Supreme Court If Roe v Wade was overturned tomorrow most states would enact its provisions legislatively Some might include restrictions on late term abortions which would be a fine thing but most abortions are not late term Crisis pregnancy

He who sings well prays twice said Saint Augustine and we must not forget that caveat who sings well Music and prayer are closely inter-twined in the great world religions and no one in the twentieth century so inextricably linked the two than the composer and organist Olivier Messiaen

In politics as in life the squeaky wheel gets the oil So our discussion of foreign affairs tends to focus on the trouble spots the on-going war in Iraq the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran the paranoid regime in Myanmar the genocide in Darfur But our political leaders should not look simply a