We hope that regular readers of our blog also check out our other online features including this podcast discussion of Seamus Heaney s new collection of poems Human Chain with Angela O Donnell of Fordham University Also worthwhile Fr Ray Schroth s video commentary on the horrific anti-gay viol

Tariq Aziz Sadaam Hussein s foreign minister and a Catholic has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity Is he guilty He says his was a political position and that he had no hand in murder and genocide The court disagreed He was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison for inv

The trailer for the new French movie Des Hommes et Des Dieux which dazzled the crowds at Cannes this year about the nbsp Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria who selflessly chose to remain in their monastery during a time of impending danger and who were later martyred by Muslim extremis

During the past month readers of America followed the pre-execution legal maneuvering to stop the Commonwealth of Virginia from carrying out the death sentence on a woman named Teresa Lewis Lewis was arguably mentally retarded and initially received poor legal representation her case was later tak

Wonderful piece the other day in The New York Times about a nbsp De La Salle nbsp Christian brother nbsp Lovely photo too It is 8 30 a m at nbsp De La Salle Academy a private school in Manhattan for academically talented poor children and classical music is humming through a boom box that har

The nbsp Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party has just responded to the ad that at first blush seemed anti-Catholic to say the least and which was picked up on several blogs--including this one nbsp It seems that it was not a hoax as some suspected but the first part of a two-page ad that well her

Culture editor James Martin S J visited Milwaukee recently for the Archdiocese s annual Pallium Lecture sponsored by Archbishop Jerome Listecki While there he spoke with the NPR nbsp show Lake Effect on Ignatian spirituality Jesuit life and the role of humor in the church Listen here nb

See update above DFL Ad Not Anti-Catholic nbsp Just Confusing Want a real example of anti-Catholicism Here it is courtesy of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party apparently in reponse to Archbishop nbsp John Nienstedt s mailing of 400 000 DVDs in opposition to same-sex marriage H t

Reporting in Rome on it for a week and having read almost every word to have come out of it in the course of its 14 days I simply cannot recognize the description of the Mid-East Synod ending last weekend which was made on Sunday by the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon complained that

Cambridge MA I was at first relieved when Jim Martin rsquo s typically excellent entry ldquo Catholic Bloggers Aim to Purge rdquo was pointed out to me to realize that whatever attacks are made against me by the Purgers they are so mild that I do not notice them But then I was alarmed to re

Boy this looks like a dynamite exhibit nbsp It s currently at Ellis Island but is travelling around the States nbsp More info is here nbsp

In the Midwest there are tornadoes but last month a storm microburst one of politics commanded pages of Chicago rsquo s newspapers spewing winds across the country to Washington DC where Obama rsquo s Chief of Staff resigned to seek the mayor rsquo s office Mayor Richard M Daley Daley II

Bill McGarvey the talented editor of Bustedhalo com is moving on

In an interview reported in USA Today Archbishop John Nienstedt ldquo said Jesus Christ directed his followers to lsquo either be hot or cold but if you re lukewarm I don t want that So we want people who live their faith rsquo rdquo This interview was given in response both to a controvers

It has been on the back of many minds since the Jan 12 earthquake took perhaps a quarter of a million lives and left about 2 million Haitians homeless when would the next crisis begin this one emerging from the dangerous conditions in temporary tent cities now home to thousands of dislocated fami

The Public Religion Research Institute released a poll that shows four in 10 Americans say that their churches present a negative view of homosexuality and finds that Catholics were the most critical of their own churches messages on nbsp homosexuality Further Only five out of 100 people ga

Taliban Catholicism is John Allen s description of web-based McCarthyism on the rise in the Catholic blogosphere nbsp Rachel Zoll has this nbsp fine piece about the self-appointed Inquisitors nbsp who nbsp flourish on the nbsp Internet nbsp H T to Margaret nbsp Steinfels at Dotcommonweal nb

Owing to the many geopolitical and economic hazards of our times, this is no throwaway election.

How I put my faith to work in Washington