Representative John Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, is a decorated veteran, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime hawk on defense matters. So Washington had a rude awakening when he declared on Nov. 17 that the time had come for the United States to withdraw its troops from

In his encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, published in 2003, Pope John Paul II repeated St. Paul’s admonition to the early church: “[I]t is ‘unworthy’ of a Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and indifference towards the

From its opening session in October 1962 until its close 40 years ago in December 1965, the Second Vatican Council held millions of Catholics and others riveted.

Support Urged for Anti-Torture Provision in Defense Department Appropriations BillU.S. law and policy about torture of prisoners is more about who we are than who they are, an adviser to the U.S. bishops told congressional staffers on Nov. 2. In urging support for an anti-torture amendment to the ap

The logjam of denials about the torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo has finally been broken. Capt. Ian Fishback’s letter in September to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has cleared the way for steps that may at last establish

"Nattering nabobs of negativism” was the phrase Spiro T. Agnew used to describe the press when he addressed the convention of California Republicans on Sept. 11, 1970. The vice president had his own reasons for despising what he called “the effete corps of impudent snobs.” Loc

On this day in 1965, the Vatican II’s “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” also known as “Nostra Aetate,” was promulgated by the council—despite surprises, shocks and setbacks along the way.

Cardinal John J. O’Connor died five years ago, but I frequently remember the times we worked together on the critical issues faced by our two communities. Our friendship was a result of the Second Vatican Council. In October 1965, 2,200 Catholic bishops adopted Nostra Aetate, the Declaration o

The face of leadership in Catholic organizations has changed dramatically in less than a generation. Catholic health care offers a clear illustration. Forty years ago most of the presidents of Catholic hospitals in the United States were Catholic women religious. Today those hospitals are nearly all

Basil Pennington Dead at 74; Known Worldwide as Writer and Teacher of PrayerAbbot M. Basil Pennington, the Trappist monk known worldwide for his books and ministry on centering prayer, died on June 3 at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester from injuries sustained in a