Robert Wuthnow on faith and politics in the American heartland

I am doing something of a spin-off on Michael O Loughlin s blog about tough questions in Oakland My concern is less the debate between Bishop Cordilione and the Board of the Catholic Association for Gay and Lesbian ministry but rather the disturbing and growing recourse to ecclesiastical loyalty o

I had occasion recently to read two books by Donal Dorr almost back to back One is a new edition widely revised and updated of his classic 1982 text Option for the Poor The second was a book entitled Spirituality Our Deepest Heart s Desire The Columba Press 2008 The two prompted me to t

When someone first asked me whether I heard that the American bishops were investigating the Girl Scouts, I thought he was pulling my leg.

nbsp I recently saw the excellent documentary film Bully which I found both quite absorbing and equally disturbing It documents several victims of bullying in mostly rural school settings I agreed with several of the leading film critics I checked out on the web site Rotten Tomatoes that the

Last week was a very hard one for me First I reeled from reading for the umpteenth time over a twenty year period Vatican attempts to tame the good sisters in a document seemingly aimed at dessicating The Leadership Conference of Religious Women Demands were made that the American nuns org

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp I saw the other night a truly superb production of Othello The Moor of Venice at the Marin Theater Company in Mill Valley It was that company s first venture in forty-five years to mount a Shakespeare play The artistic director Jasson Minadakis had told his Othe

I went last week to The California Museum in Sacramento with a passel of Jesuits from the University of San Francisco on a rented bus to see finally an exhibition about American nuns I had heard so much about The exhibition Women and Spirit had been assembled and mounted through the Leaders

I have to deliver a lecture next week in Minnesota on Catholic social thought on the environment a topic dear to me Checking the weather reports for that area I have noticed a high unseasonal warmth But I know of course that climate is not weather We can have overall global warming or c

Can we please both church and state in a pluralistic society?