We sometimes imagine that the besieged and occasionally violent form of religiosity known as fundamentalism is a uniquely Islamic trait. This is not the case. As Karen Armstrong has written, fundamentalism is a global fact and has surfaced in every major faith in response to the problems of modernit

Christians believe there is life after death, but that does not mean they take death lightly. Like everyone else, they learn sooner or later why St. Paul called death the last enemy to be destroyed. Paul also said that Christians should not mourn for those who have died like people who have no hope,

From 2001, a warning that the war on terrorism would not be won with bullets alone

The welfare reform law of 1996 comes up for reauthorization by Congress a year from now. When enacted, it represented an end to the three-decades-old entitlement to public assistance for poor Americans, who have subsequently been pushed toward work in the expectation that they would become self-suff

The bitter grievances that many in the poor nations have against the rich nations produced two explosions last month, one actual and one figurative. The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 were as real as death. The quarrels that nearly blew up the United Nations Conference on Racism amounted to a symboli

The United States is going to wage a war against terrorists, says President George W. Bush. Is this a just war according to the principles of the Catholic just war theory? For this issue we asked experts in the just war theory to examine this question and present their views.Before looking at the U.

Faced with the enormity of suffering and evil that we have seen in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it is impossible to find words that are adequate to comprehend it. When we search for words to deal with this tragedy, we quickly find ourselves at a loss. In the face

Shock, denial, anger and depression swept the country on Sept. 11 as the nation watched thousands of civilians and military people viciously murdered by terrorists. Not since Pearl Harbor has the United States suffered such a devastating attack on its soil, and the number of dead exceeds those kille

This year is the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees—a body of international law aimed at ensuring the rights of people fleeing persecution and civil unrest. Overshadowing the celebratory note appropriate to such an occasion, however, is the fac

In a speech to the nation televised from his Texas ranch on Aug. 9, President Bush discussed a moral question that for the past several months has preoccupied both him and many of his fellow citizens: should federal taxpayer dollars be used for research on stem cells that have been derived from livi