In All Things

Sometimes the irony is so close it is difficult to see My friend Andrew Sullivan heads his blog with a quote from George Orwell To see what is in front of one s nose needs a constant struggle And as often as not the irony is in the words themselves Catholic is a word with a meaning

Barack Obama lost the Catholic vote in Pennsylvania to Hillary Clinton by an enormous margin of 68 -31 but his inability to attract Catholics has dogged him in earlier contests too The Catholic vote overlaps with other demographics blue collar older ethnic white all of which have garnered

A unusually good and unusually fresh meditation on Pope Benedict s visit to Ground Zero and the pope s visit with the sexual abuse victims which uses the imagery of St Peter–who is told by Jesus that the leader of the church will be taken where you do not want to go It s at Pajamas

On Monday I gave a talk to an assembly conference of a couple hundred high school students from Catholic schools in San Francisco with my assigned topic being sexuality and spirituality today With all the caveats about the potential minefields assumed it was also an exciting opportunity to try

Hillary Clinton said last night that the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue leads through Pennsylvania But for the next few weeks the road from Pennsylvania leads to electoral purgatory Clinton can t win the nomination unless she so bloodies Barack Obama that the super-delegates and the voters

After a long week in Washington and New York covering Pope Benedict XVI David Gibson generously agreed to come by America s offices this morning to record a special podcast on the pope s visit Dave was a little tired but still on top of his game You can listen to our conversation here As

Jim Martin S J chats with Stephen Colbert about Pope Benedict XVI s visit to the United States as well as Stephen s chances for sainthood And Jim backstage with Colbert Jim Keane SJ

There are man reasons that many Democrats are hoping the results of today s Pennsylvania primary will finally bring the race to a close But if six months ago anyone would have suggested that one of the reasons to end the race is so that Bill Clinton can leave the stage they would have been lau

The Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium yesterday was one of the high points of my Catholic life Not simply for being able to be close to Pope Benedict XVI a man with whom I from time to time disagree and being able to see the Successor of St Peter but also for being able to celebrate being Cath