Catholic Relief Service workers in the field are reporting unprecedented devastation in Haiti rsquo s capital city Port-au-Prince following yesterday rsquo s 7 0-magnitude earthquake Karel Zelenka CRS rsquo s country representative for Haiti told CRS spokesperson John Rivera the devastation is unl
Kevin Clarke
Kevin Clarke is America’s chief correspondent and the author of Oscar Romero: Love Must Win Out (Liturgical Press).
“Allah” provokes Malay melee
Just a few days after a Malaysian court ruling allowing a Catholic newspaper to use the word Allah to refer to God seemed to offer the nation rsquo s minority Christians a small civil victory the government has reinistated its ldquo Allah rdquo ban among non-Muslims Malaysian officials are appar
Good cop, bad cop on health care reform?
David Gibson puts together a useful analysis of the media s handling of an apparent divergence of opinion between the U S C C B and the Catholic Health Association on the health care reform package see Jim Martin s nbsp previous post nbsp on this and the possible use of federal money to pay for a
More good news on U.S. crime
Determined to locate something positive to say before the editorial close of 2009 this reporter did not have to poke around the net too long before finding news to be happy-new-yearish about despite the bad economy and high unemployment national crime stats continued to trend downward in 2009 A
I read the news today, oh boy
I had myself a tranquil little Christmas this weekend with two civilized family gatherings i e no one Tarzan-swung a chandelier through a bay window no traditional child tantrums around the tree and everyone generally satisfied with the weekend s offerings and observations with no ER visits or
Zelaya’s dreaming of a flight, Christmas
As ousted President Manuel Zelaya entered his third month holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Honduras rsquo capital city Tegulcigalpa it appears unlikely that the popularly elected Honduran president deposed on June 28 will spend Christmas anywhere else but with the Brazilians Attempts to neg
End-game–again–on health care reform?
McClatchy syndicate s Joe Galloway offers a sobering call to disarm on the latest incarnation of health care reform in the United States Following the appalling display by Connecticut s Joe Liebermann and the jaw-dropping turnabout by the DNC s Howard Dean it is hard to argue with his sobering th
“If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation”
The Vatican released excerpts from Pope Benedict s World Day of Peace address for New Year s 2010 Reworking a line from Pope Paul Benedict says If you want to cultivate peace protect creation The quest for peace by people of good will surely become easier if all acknowledge the indivisible
Too many wars in the air?
Lest anyone suspect that Afghanistan is the only theater of war that U S strategists need to concern themselves with the recent car bombings in Iraq is a seriously unwelcome reminder that things may not be proceeding altogether well in that front of the late unlamented war on terror An Iraqi Cr
European bluffery in not-so-wonderful Copenhagen
Observers at the Copenhagen climate conference from Caritas Internationalis were pretty underwhelmed by commitments from European states to help poor nations in the developing world mitigate unnatural disasters due to global warming calling the purported new commitments a wind-powered bluff In a
