Kevin Clarke

More than 210 organizations are engaged in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy in Washington D C a fivefold increase over the last 40 years according to a new report Lobbying for the Faithful from the Pew Research Center s Forum on Religion amp Public Life Collectively the gro

While the OWS movement celebrated its second month anniversary with marches all over the country most notably in Manhattan the U S Census Bureau was continuing its march through American poverty statistics The census quietly released another selection of depressing data related to childhood pove

Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority a note recently issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace included a litany of complaints with the means and ends and some of the recent escapades of contemporary capitalism

The events at Penn State have properly called for an examination of conscience from the university s Board of Trustees which apparently hoping Joe Paterno would resign in light of the revelations emerging in recent days was forced to fire the college football legend One can only hope it provokes

Forbes has named its 2011 world s most powerful people Number 7 goes to Pope Benedict XVI Not too shabby but a slight comedown from 2010 when he was up two spots at 5 Ranked at number one was Barack Obama followed by Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin The number three spot went to Chinese

The British empire took a giant leap forward into the 19th century today by allowing that royals will not be barred from the throne merely because they married a good gracious Catholic Catholics of course remain barred from the throne itself because of the difficulty and all that rot of seating

As President Obama confirmed today a final drawdown of U S troops from Iraq by Christmas Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanis was himself returning from a brief pastoral tour of duty in Baghdad He shared his impressions with us and offers a poignant reminder that while the experience in Iraq may be comin

Here s more for my reality once again outpacing satire folder h t to David Gibson at dotcommonweal and The Lede The president s recent decision to commit 100 U S military advisors to train Ugandan Central African Republic and Congolese troops so they can God willing finally put an end to th

The New York Times is reporting that Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese he leads have been indicted by a county grand jury on a charge of failure to report suspected child abuse in the case of a priest who had been accused of taking lewd photographs of young girls nbsp The Times rep