It seems as if every couple years a National Security Agency or surveillance story is leaked to exactly the same response mass hysteria and public demands that the government release reports of just how deep these procedures dig And it seems as if every couple years we forget that the same thing h

Yesterday I made my way to St Ephrem rsquo s Church Brooklyn New York for the funeral of Bishop Joseph Sullivan This is the parish where Joe was baptized educated ldquo he had mostly A rsquo s but only a C in conduct rdquo celebrated his first Mass as a priest and bishop and where we ga

My father was the most amiable of men I used to laugh at him in conversation with guests He rsquo d say to one uncle quot Yes you rsquo re right quot A moment later he would say to another of a quite contrary opinion quot I can rsquo t disagree with that quot If I later challenged him o

Persistent critics have weakened the church's anti-poverty program, the report says.

Heathrow Airport UK As I write these words I am in Terminal 5 that new and cosmopolitan crossroads for people traveling it seems just about everywhere in the world a shopping mall of global proportions I am on my way to Beijing for a brief 12-day visit more on that later But as I waitin t

Three bishops weighed in on the ongoing congressional debate on immigration reform legislation June 10, warning against amending a Senate bill in ways that would block the path to legalization for undocumented immigrants.At a news conference in San Diego, held as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bish

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi is refusing to comment on a quot private meeting quot but Pope Francis is being quoted by a number of European media outlets including AFP Agence France Presse as confirming the existence of a quot gay lobby quot inside the Vatican that he suggests may be

A recent study by the Rev Francis Perry Azah nbsp a priest from Ghana and a doctoral-level pastoral counselor offers a clear and wide-ranging view into situations of child abuse in Ghana Titled nbsp Wholeness of the Abused Children and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder A Psycho-Pastoral Perspectiv

In the first entry in the 1 Thessalonians Bible Junkies Commentary I began by looking at introductory matters which were comprised of comments on the nature of a Greco-Roman letter and the background of Paul rsquo s activity in Thessalonica that we know primarily from Acts of the Apostles and par

Shortly after the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was arrested I went to some friends rsquo house for dinner We discussed the use of surveillance cameras to identify the two Tsarnaev brothers and speculated on whether other cities would be increasing their use of them Almost certainly w

Miami Florida I am here for the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America and contemplating also my departure for a 12-day trip to China on Monday More on those events in other blogs This blog is rather about a five year and just finished project sponsored by the American Ac

The heads of the national conferences of bishops from the nations participating in the upcoming G8 summit have sent a joint letter to the leaders of G8 nations commenting on the issues they would like to see emphasized at the summit Citing recent comments from good Pope Francis on making a special

The Catholic Book Club seeks to right a wrong with this month’s selection.   Since its inception in 1928, CBC has never chosen a work by Flannery O’Connor.  This month, we will read and discuss O'Connor’s novel, The Violent Bear It Away.On April 15, 2013, I

Can you still say the Pledge of Allegiance Can you recall the wording of the Boy Scout Oath or the Girl Scout Can you recite an Act of Contrition Whether we understood it at the time in childhood we committed these avowals to memory as a way of preparing for adulthood The Pledge of Allegiance r

The English author and journalist Will Self provides a dramatic image of the City of London's changing skyline. He likens it to a slow-motion firework display as new glass and steel skyscrapers rise and fall, sparkling for a few decades but—by implication at least—destined for ashes.

With the nation still reeling over the revelations of infanticide and assorted grotesqueries that emerged during the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia last month and bucking a national trend of legislative encroachments against broad abortion rights New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

I never met Andrew Greeley, but like many people, I felt as if I knew him.

More than a million immigrants have been deported from over the past five years.

From 2013: Enforcing marijuana laws seriously drains social resources and contributes to the nation’s unconscionably high incarceration rate.