NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN The meeting of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq with the Iranian ambassador to Iraq in Baghdad on May 28, under the auspices of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was an encouraging step in the direction urged by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. The meetings agenda

ISLAMIC REFORM Skeptics often ask whether Muslims are capable of democratic self-government. Most often the implied supposition is that they could not possibly be. But two current political struggles suggest that Muslims, like any people, are capable of standing up for democracy. Pakistan has been r

Big Deal for Big PharmaBy a vote of 49 to 40, the Senate approved an amendment that effectively excludes U.S. citizens from importing prescription drugs from abroad. The amendment requires prior F.D.A. certification of imported medicines, certification the administration says the agency is not equip

Atheism and the TheologiansWhen Michael Buckley, S.J., presented a copy of his book At the Origins of Modern Atheism to the late Pope John Paul II, the pontiff asked, And who was at the origins of modern atheism? Without hesitation, Father Buckley volunteered, the theologians. His study is an award-

Adult Believers Over the years “not confusing the faithful” has become an all-purpose bromide for checking theological speculation and reducing the role of theology in the church to elementary catechesis. This policy frequently harmed the authority of the church among educated Catholics

The Court RulesThe latest U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the prohibition on partial-birth abortion is a healthy correction of an earlier court’s overreach in establishing a legal right to abortion. In his opinion for the majority in Gonzales v. Carhart, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued th