MADRID The weather -- this happened before when the Pope came to the UK -- is positively Spring-like here in the Spanish capital clear-skied and sunny But Pope Benedict won t be coming here he arrives tomorrow for a 32-hour visit to two iconic European cathedrals the imposing medieval cathed

Hear more from blogger Matt Malone S J in this special election podcast Matt s key insight Don t mistake mood for mandate Tim Reidy nbsp

This week we have been featuring videos on our home page from the Truth Commission on Conscience in War held in March in Riverside Church here in New York The Truth Commission was set up to provide greater protection for moral conscience in war for those in military service At the March event se

From the USCCB website Bishop Bishop Gerald F Kicanas of Tucson Arizona Vice-president of the U S Conference of Catholic Bishops testified before Congress on the ethical imperative for reform of the U S immigration system He spoke before the House Subcommittee on Immigration Citizenship Re

As part of his doctoral research in the education program at St Louis University in the 1990s Michael Maher studied the attitudes toward student homosexuality in Catholic high schools He was shocked by the silence about this topic When he met with four experienced Catholic school counselors wit

Today a 30-day online retreat that is one in which you can follow the suggestions for meditation by viewing a new web page each day begins nbsp nbsp It is sponsored by the Jesuit Refugee Service USA and follows the Spiritual Exercises nbsp of St Ignatius Loyola nbsp In his 19th Annotation

Polling of all sorts always contains a margin of error usually about 3 percent though it pays to check each poll Of course some pollsters can at times be just plain wrong or worse even biased This should make readers wary of their predictions Since some online comments in response to more th

It is 7 a m British time and the results of yesterday rsquo s U S election have reached London There were few surprises one of those rare moments in recent American politics when the polls and pundits got it right The question on everybody s mind of course is what the results mean When folks

At the funeral in Baghdad yesterday for the dozens of Christian hostages killed by Al-Qaeda gunmen on Sunday the Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly head of Iraq s largest Catholic church said the victims had been struck by the devil s hand Six young foreign-born Islamic militants burst into

Yesterday was the official pub date for Fr Ray Schroth s new biography of Robert F Drinan S J --the controversial Jesuit priest and congressmen--and NCR has already weighed in with a positive review As the review notes the most intriguing question raised by the book is whether Drinan who serve

Today after months of intense fighting and spending close to four billions dollars on campaigns Americans are headed to the polls If the pundits are right Republicans will take control of the House make some gains in the Senate and come out victorious in more than a few gubernatorial conte

Leo J O Donovan SJ president emeritus of Georgetown University is always on the lookout for art exhibitions that readers might find of interest nbsp Recently he visited a new show at New York s Metropolitan Museum of Art which has been receiving raves for its creative curation The World of

I hope you have been reading Austen Ivereigh s reports from Rome these past few weeks where events have occurred that will define important aspects of church growth in the future Within Ivereigh rsquo s excellent reporting is a story within a story perhaps unnoticed but important nevertheless As

The only Christians who remain in Iraq are those too old or too poor to attempt to escape many of the Iraqi refugees I interviewed last September in Amman Jordan assured me They said after years of threats kidnappings bombings and murders they would never return had no reason to return would n

When parents drop off the son or daughter at college they worry about several things Will the son or daughter be fed have the ldquo right rdquo roommate study without parental supervision drink too much and walk out in front of a car fall in with the wrong crowd or fall in love with a

Even if you re a believer you may think that the saints have nothing to do with your own life You ve no doubt read some of those gory stories of men and women having their eyes plucked out or tongues cut out or bodies devoured by lions in the Coliseum not to mention stories of their being behea

Add this to the list of possible omens for tomorrow rsquo s election Neil Diamond is about to release a new album The gravely voiced soft rock sensation will release ldquo Dreams rdquo on Election Day Mere coincidence Perhaps Yet Diamond rsquo s anthology has provided an uncanny soundtrack

Within a fortnight of the end of the Middle-East Synod there is news out of Baghdad which illustrates what the Iraqi bishops were saying in Rome that Christians and their churches are easy targets for the foreign terror gangs in Iraq Zenit reports that Syrian Catholic Archbishop Georges Casmoussa