According to a CNS story I overlooked that was posted earlier this week Mercy Sister Margaret McBride has been restored to Catholic in good standing status Sister McBride s automatic excommunication was publicly noted by Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted because of her role in approving an abortion

The good news of course for America is that U S troops are returning home and the costly adventure in Iraq drawing to a close According to the timetable endorsed by Iraq and the United States virtually all U S troops should be on their way home by the end of December The bad news What is to

Newt Gingrich is the current front-runner in the game of musical chairs that s standing in for the GOP presidential campaign this year but it s suddenly not clear if Gingrich hopes to take up office in Washington or Jerusalem--is he trying to beat Obama Romney or Netanyahu His recent comments app

Last week when I wrote about the contretemps between the Pew Forum and Catholic Relief Services and U S C C B over the precise figures for the advocacy work undertaken by the two Catholic entities I relied on previous Pew statements in my possession to cobble together the forum s response This

How accurate were recent figures cited by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life nbsp in their recent report on advocacy lobbying by religious entities in Washington The report Lobbying for the Faithful garnered national attention and the figure Pew calculated for U S C C B advocacy what

More than 210 organizations are engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in Washington D C a fivefold increase over the last 40 years according to a new report Lobbying for the Faithful from the Pew Research Center s Forum on Religion amp Public Life Collectively the gro

While the OWS movement celebrated its second month anniversary with marches all over the country most notably in Manhattan the U S Census Bureau was continuing its march through American poverty statistics The census quietly released another selection of depressing data related to childhood pove

Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority a note recently issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace included a litany of complaints with the means and ends and some of the recent escapades of contemporary capitalism

The events at Penn State have properly called for an examination of conscience from the university s Board of Trustees which apparently hoping Joe Paterno would resign in light of the revelations emerging in recent days was forced to fire the college football legend One can only hope it provokes

Forbes has named its 2011 world s most powerful people Number 7 goes to Pope Benedict XVI Not too shabby but a slight comedown from 2010 when he was up two spots at 5 Ranked at number one was Barack Obama followed by Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin The number three spot went to Chinese