As the nation moves beyond the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, difficult choices lie ahead. While it has become increasingly clear that the war in Iraq has not made the United States more secure or the world a safer place, future U.S. policy in Iraq is not nearly as clear. Would the prema

Professionals and PatriotsWashington has rumbled for years with rumors of professional dissent at the Pentagon and C.I.A. from Bush administration policies in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq. Occasionally the dissent has become public, as when Gen. Eric Shinseki, then chairman of the Join

Massive rallies around the country demonstrate a groundswell of popular opinion pressing for comprehensive immigration reform. Encouraged by the church, these have been peaceful events by primarily hardworking, family-oriented people. The demonstrators want to see undocumented people given the oppor

The investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story just as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country had succeeded in enriching uranium. The Bush administration, Hersh wrote, is planning a preventive military attack against Iran, possibly with the use of tactical nu

Sant'Egidio Comes to AmericaThe most important Catholic group that you may never have heard of is the Sant’Egidio community. Their anonymity may lessen with an upcoming convention, Religion and Cultures, to be held at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., on April 26-27. It will be t

Hunger here in the richest nation in the world? Impossible, one might think. But the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual Hunger and Homelessness Survey makes it clear that hunger and food insecurity (not always having access to enough food to meet basic needs) not only exist, but are on the rise

For Christians throughout the world the dawn of Easter morning marks the celebration of the triumph of life over death, as we affirm our faith in the resurrection of Jesus. Religious faith is easily caricatured these days, dismissed as a failure of nerve before the ambiguities of real life or, more

Reality CheckIn recent weeks, plans for school and parish reconfigurations have been disclosed in a number of dioceses. It is reality-check time across much of the Northeast, where changing demographics have occasioned these realignments. However poignant and evocative the stories of my grandmother

The United States has enjoyed an extraordinarily long period of economic growth with very little inflation. There have been setbacks caused by high oil prices, the attacks on 9/11 and the dot-com crash, but in general there have not been the wide swings from high inflation to deep recession that wer

Junkyard BoundWhat is good for General Motors, quipped Charles Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower’s Secretary of Commerce, is good for the nation. As a former chairman of G.M., Wilson was not a disinterested party, but for much of the next half-century, as the auto giant and its employees prospered, so