This week on our podcast the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis author of the The Last Days of Judas Iscariot discusses his new play The Little Flower of East Orange Guirgis talks about moments of grace in his life and the writers who have inspired him Listen here Little Flower starri

Dale Recinella has updated his article Ending the Death Penalty from the April 28 issue to include commentary on the Supreme Court s recent decision on the constitutionality of lethal injection Read it here You ll need to scroll to the end Tim Reidy

Matt Malone has just posted the final installment of his review of the fabulous John Adams miniseries on HBO Read it here For those of you who haven t seen the series be sure to add it to your Netflix queue it comes out on DVD on June 10 You can find Matt s review and other notable W

After a long week in Washington and New York covering Pope Benedict XVI David Gibson generously agreed to come by America s offices this morning to record a special podcast on the pope s visit Dave was a little tired but still on top of his game You can listen to our conversation here As

Matt Malone S J is on assignment covering the papal visit to the United States The final installments of his review of the HBO mini-series John Adams will appear next week on America Connects You can catch up on his previous reviews here

As Fr Jim Martin noted last week America s editors will be fanned out across New York this week to cover the pope s visit To supplement their coverage we re expanding our roster of bloggers to include more perspectives from both New York and DC Also thanks to Catholic News Service we

Even if you re not watching HBO s excellent John Adams miniseries be sure to read Matt Malone s weekly commentary Matt s essays go beyond the ordinary thumbs up thumbs down criticism to explore what the series says about our nation s founding ideals and our own political moment In

In his column in this week s America Fr John Kavanaugh takes another look at the infamous speeches of Jeremiah Wright and warns against dismissing his criticisms of U S society as the rantings of a crackpot In Friday s Los Angeles Times Michael Eric Dyson draws an intriguing comparison bet

If you re in the Bronx tonight join us for Cardinal Avery Dulles final McGinley lecture at Fordham University Fr Robert Imbelli of Boston College will be giving a response The event is free and open to the public Tim Reidy

Who would you rather have a beer with John Adams or Benjamin Franklin That s one of the pressing questions Matt Malone addresses in the latest installment of his review of HBO s John Adams Part 3 focuses on Adams trip to France to woo the French court to the American cause Matt will be