President Bush rsquo s press conference the day was galling in many ways The man rsquo s inability to admit a mistake was stunning Hell I rsquo ve made plenty of mistakes in the past eight years How about you But nothing was more pathetic than his truculence regarding the federal response to th

If Treasury Secretary-designate Tim Geithner can rsquo t get his own taxes right why should we trust him with ours It is a fair question but one that I suspect has a simple answer My guess is that Mr Geithner actually does not do his own taxes but instead hires someone to do them But that rais

Imagine my surprise when I nbsp received nbsp an nbsp email this morning that read in its entirety ldquo Jesus added you as a friend on Facebook nbsp We need to confirm that you know Jesus in order for you to be friends on Facebook rdquo nbsp I rsquo m not joking nbsp Here s the link to

Disproportion in warfare is sometimes a simple matter of commonsense As Justice Potter Stewart wrote of hardcore pornography ldquo I know it when I see it rdquo We don rsquo t need philosophers and moral theologians to define it for us When we heard in Vietnam that ldquo We destroyed the vill

What rsquo s good for the goose is good for the gays Anyone who supported the selection of controversial evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the prayer at the Inaugural ceremony must now support the selection of controversial Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson to give the opening prayer at the Li

As well as being the 400th anniversary of Galileo s glimpse of Jupiter s moons 2009 is the bicentenary of Charles Darwin s birth -- and the 150th anniversary of his epoch-changing work On the Origin of the Species Should it occur to anyone Dawkins put down that finch to dress the ninete

The Holocaust was an evil of enormous proportions In the West at least it has become an iconic horror and in the face of similar atrocities much intellectual labor has been expended to sustain its unique standing in the popular imagination as the evil par excellence Comparisons and analogies a

nbsp and why atheism is a comfortable indulgence Madeleine Bunting nbsp gets it

George W Bush leaves office with some of the lowest approval numbers since the advent of modern polling Of course the first president to achieve historic lows when polling first began Harry S Truman has been treated far more kindly by history Will the same happen to George W Bush For the ne

From AP VATICAN CITY by Nicole Winfield ndash Cardinal Pio Laghi a longtime nbsp Vatican nbsp diplomat who went to Washington to try to dissuade nbsp U S President George W Bush nbsp from launching the2003 invasion of Iraq has died the Vatican said Sunday He was 86 Laghi died Saturday e

The fun goes on The UK advertising nbsp ombudsman nbsp may have to rule on God s existence following a complaint by Christians that a bus poster paid for by atheists violates industry standards In All Things regulars may recall the poster and the British Atheist Bus Campaign controversy which

And why not nbsp James Martin SJ

Governance is a moral act Since the Reagan years the morals enshrined in our nation rsquo s policies have been those values that characterize laissez-faire economics individual responsibility acquisitiveness personal freedom and less government intrusion in corporate decision-making processes

Nothing less than pivotal is the baptism of Jesus Matthew our Gospel writer of Sunday tells us nothing about Jesus after the notice that the Holy Family settled in Nazareth nothing till this moment when Jesus seeks baptism from John Lest this turning to John for a religious act seem

This message was posted on the First Things blog this morning by Joseph Bottum editor of the magazine Fr Richard John Neuhaus slipped away today January 8 shortly before 10 o rsquo clock at the age of seventy-two He never recovered from the weakness that sent him to the hospital the day aft

Word has come via First Things that Father Richard John Neuhaus has died I learned of his serious illness last night and since then have felt like a cat who falls and doesn rsquo t land on all fours disoriented and very sad I remember the first time Father Neuhaus attacked me in print I felt

In the beginning was the Word the Gospel of John tells us a Word without flesh A word wields power to heal to hurt to change to condemn to affirm A word separates us from the animal kingdom A word can civilize and uplift us In the beginning It is the beginning of 2009 We have a lot of

During the campaign Barack Obama got tagged for being too much of a celebrity with a famous ad that displayed images of the then-Senator interspersed with photos of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton So my first thought upon hearing the news that Obama intends to name Dr Sanjay Gupta of CNN fame a

Depends what you mean by criticize nbsp Deal Hudson former editor of Crisis magazine and now director of InsideCatholic com offers a qualified yes here Hudson A Catholic journalist may therefore criticize a bishop in editorial fashion so long as he shows respect for the office maintains