Election reform is needed in the United States on several levels, both because of inequities in the present system and because of low voter turnoutone of the lowest in the world. The period from 1960 to 2000 marked a long decline: whereas 65 percent of the adult population voted in the 1960 presiden

On October 28, 1965, during the fourth and last session of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Pope Paul VI formally promulgated the council’s Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Like other documents promulgated by the council, it would be identified b

Last month the nation observed for the first time Constitution Day. Some school administrators confessed that they were not aware of recent legislation that requires all public schools and colleges to sponsor an annual program on the Constitution on or around Sept. 17, the date in 1787 when the Cons

As the U.S. Senate began its confirmation debate on President Bush’s nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for chief justice of the Supreme Court, the outcome of that debate seemed assured: Judge Roberts would be confirmed as the nation’s 17th chief justice with overwhelming approval b

The United Nations summit meeting has ended. On the whole, the outcome of the deliberations of nearly 170 world leaders was disappointing. Secretary General Kofi Annan commented, "Obviously, we didn’t get everything we wanted." In particular, he called the absence of any commitments

Our church and society stand in need of renewed and sustained discussion regarding an ethic of life. Serious conversation has largely devolved into sloganeering and sound bites. The prevailing metaphor, culture of life versus culture of death, has galvanized people’s imaginations and inspired

The citizens of the United States must insist that our leaders confront with uncompromising honesty the fault lines of American society revealed by the damage wrought by Katrina.

As a new academic year begins, generalizations about American Catholic elementary and secondary education are risky, because there are signs both of losses and gains. Losses because with the closing of many financially strapped schools the system is smaller than it once was. Forty years ago, the pop

When world leaders gathered at the United Nations five years ago to promulgate their Millennium Declaration, they pledged their nations to a global partnership aimed at cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015. Two years later they met again in Monterrey, Mexico, to develop a framework for undertakin

Abusive labor practices continue to plague workers here and around the worlda circumstance that should give pause to those fortunate enough to earn comfortable incomes for themselves and their families. For many it may come as a surprise that even here in the United States, worker exploitation is pe