John McCain in an effort to paint Barack Obama as wet behind the ears on security issues has taken the Illinois Senator to task for promising to meet with foreign leaders without preconditions McCain has focused much of his blast at the implications for relations with Iran whose leader is admitt

Among the endless reports of senseless bloodshed and revenge killings coming out of Iraq is one curious and inspiring story reported by CNS yesterday Catholic Bishop Rejects Execution of Iraqi Archbishop s Murderer Though Al Qaeda operative Ahmed Ali Ahmed was found guilty of kidnapping and

The Anchoress has an honest piece on how one goes about praying for someone--even if one is not initially inclined to It s no secret that for every Catholic fan of Senator Ted Kennedy and I am an enormous admirer of this remarkable man though I don t agree with him on everything there is

An excellent article by George Packer in this week s New Yorker traces the steady disintegration of the conservative movement Packer s history is a reminder that from its earliest days American conservativism was deeply attractive to many Catholics Writing about William J Buckley s memorial

In 2007 I predicted to anyone who would listen that the Democrats would have their nominee at 8 01 Iowa time on the night of that state s caucus The effort to front-load the calendar to give states other than Iowa and New Hampshire a bigger say in choosing the nominee seemed destined to have t

Many years ago now Pope John Paul II went to Lima Peru There he was met by a massive crowd of two million people Instead of the usual greetings from the President and the Cardinal two people from a shantytown stepped forward to the microphone Their names were Irene and Viktor Charo As the hug

Similar to the sane conservatives discussed last week some pro-choice liberals have begun to back away from the most extreme positions on abortion They have shifted their focus from fighting tooth-and-nail to eliminate even the whiff of a restriction on access to the procedure to trying and reduce

I recently returned from perhaps the best vacation of my life Eight days on the Mayan Riviera where some friends and I stayed at the Riu Palace Mexico a five-star resort south of Cancun Cozumel I highly recommend a trip there to all of you The all-inclusive package is a best buy for sure

This weekend Michael Tueth SJ a professor of communications at Fordham University in New York gave what I think was a wonderful homily at the baccalaureate Mass for graduating seniors And you don t have to be a student to appreciate it In just a few paragraphs leavened with humor he a

The recent kerfuffle over the National Abortion Rights Action League s endorsement of Sen Barack Obama put the radically pro-choice organization at the center of the news They were denounced by several pro-choice feminists including Ellen Malcolm the head of EMILY s List a group that seeks

Why are some Catholics not allowed to dance during the liturgy?

Martha Nussbaum's 'Liberty of Conscience,' reviewed

How does the future of Catholicism in America appear to be shaping? Let us look at the facts. Immigration, the constant source hitherto of Catholic increase, has been cut down from the wide torrential river which it was before the Great War to an insignificant trickle. Mere numerical increase of the

The Information Age has been eclipsed by instantaneous infotainment

Deep Sadness Over Destruction in Myanmar Pope Benedict XVI expressed deep sadness and offered “heartfelt sympathy” after hearing news of “the tragic aftermath” of Cyclone Nargis, which killed tens of thousands in Myanmar. News agencies reported May 6 that more than 22,000 peo

When seven Jesuits arrived to set up shop at 32 Washington Square West on Feb. 6, 1909, they had some distinguished company among the buildings flanking New York City's famous Washington Square Park.

This book is not what I expected I had anticipated a memoir but A Life With Karol is less that and more what its title page describes as ldquo a conversation rdquo Thus while the book generally advances chronologically it moves forward and backward in time as the conversation develops As a c

During graduate studies in English many years ago, I came to love certain academic books, the first of which was Northrop Frye’s The Anatomy of Criticism. Frye, who applied archetypal analysis to classic literature, labeled comic drama as “the mythos of spring,” a celebration of a

Freedom for Christians Those who are following the fits and starts of Turkey’s current attempt to enter the European Union have undoubtedly been reminded of earlier, less peaceful encounters between the Turks and Europe. The Siege of Vienna in 1529 and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the latter