Bishop Hubbard Howard Albany NY and Bishop William Murphy Rockville Centre NY share leadership for the United States Catholic Bishop rsquo s Conference Department of Justice Peace and Development ldquo It is a bifurcated committee rdquo said Hubbard ldquo where my staff focus on intern

Several miles from the State Capital in Albany New York the old building that was once an orphanage stands proudly as the Pastoral Center for the Albany Diocese whose boundaries span the Catskill Mountains to the Adirondack Mountains Playgrounds are now parking lots Once inside there are frien

With the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan underway Noah Feldman rsquo s op-ed in the New York Times last week looks at the expected makeup of the next Court comprised of six Catholics and three Jews He meditates on the idea that there will be no Protestants on the nation rsquo s highest benc

I confess I do not remember too many Latin phrases from high school but I remember Ave atque Vale ndash Hail and Farewell This is my last blog posting at America as Father Martin pointed out yesterday Starting tomorrow I will have my own blog DC Distinctively Catholic at the National Catholi

Tomorrow we will bid farewell on this blog to Michael Sean Winters one of our most indefatigable and nbsp most popular bloggers and someone well known to the readers of America nbsp Michael author of Left at the Altar How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Dem

Michael Kelly has an interesting piece in Cathnews com today comparing the recent sacking of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the current issues in church administration nbsp The sacking of a Prime Minister is just a more visible instance of something that happens every day on a less spect

As noted below yesterday Cardinal Schoenborn of Vienna met with Pope Benedict at the Vatican Rocco called the meeting Vienna carpeted indicating that Schoenborn was crawled on the Vatican carpet for remarks he made previously directed against Cardinal Sodano rsquo s handling of the clergy sex a

One of the things I ve learned over the last couple years of writing blog posts is how frequently I must pause to ask myself how I as a parent am going to present a certain issue My hesitations are almost always around the ways I will present in word and image matters about women and sexuality

As a statement of intention Make Poverty History is hard to argue with And it has proven over the course of years to be a rallying cry for people concerned about poverty in our world particularly in the developing world nbsp Yet the concrete goals being set by this popular catchphrase are har

From the AP VATICAN CITY AP -- The Vatican on Monday admonished a leading cardinal for having publicly criticized the former Vatican No 2 for his handling of clerical abuse cases In a statement the Vatican said only the pope can make such accusations against a cardinal not another so-called p

Associate Editor Kevin Clarke appears in an upcoming issue wearing his reporter s hat The Last Days of St Vincent s See also his video-slideshow A Requiem for St Vincent s But this week online we asked him to try out some different skills in a review of a new documentary on HBO Gasland

A colleague and I were recently discussing at a conference how in certain contexts we answer the question What do you do It rsquo s a simple and common question asked by new acquaintances old friends family colleagues and others And living in D C it rsquo s almost always the first thing

This week our online exclusives include content from several America editors In our podcast Web Editor Tim Reidy and I talk about my year of volunteer service on the Navajo Reservation through the Mercy Volunteer Corps Powered by Podbean com Associate Editor Kevin Clarke spoke with Sist

Few words have become dirtier faster than bailout Republicans hurl it against anyone who voted to save the economy from ruin back in the waning days of the Bush administration The subsequent bailouts of Detroit were one of the tipping points that led to the formation of the Tea Party movement A

What is the effect of the digital age on our relationship with God nbsp Does technology get in the way of faith nbsp Will Twitter set us on the nbsp path of virtual religion nbsp nbsp Can Facebook lead to a spiritual experience nbsp What about the nbsp need to pray vs our desire to c

Ah yes the famous anti-Catholicism of the New York Times nbsp In fact I was just speaking with someone about that topic today a person convinced that the New York Times has it out for or in for nbsp the Catholic Church nbsp Its nbsp supposed bias is thought to contribute to the paper s nbsp

This wonderful Mass and this wonderful event nbsp was celebrated last Saturday nbsp nbsp As usual Archbishop Dolan a friend of the Society was terrific nbsp Here is a video from Currents H T to The Deacon s Bench nbsp

It is quite rare that a film haunts me for several days after seeing it making me imagine again its mesmerizing scenery and characters and wonder at its elegant if fierce intensity yet gentle and decent humanity Watching Winter rsquo s Bone which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year rsquo s S

Two unrelated but significant political issues warrant consideration as we round out the week Yesterday Senate Republicans upheld a filibuster on a jobs bill Earlier in the week the Obama administration and the intellectual courtiers that surround it received its sharpest and finest rebuke

In mid-June 2010 violence broke out in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan Many homes like those pictured below were burned people were killed and thousands fled to the Uzbekistan border Our friend Laura Sheahen at Catholic Relief Services is in Kyrgyzstan and sent us this on-the-ground r