In the Western democratic tradition, debates over war and peace are recorded as far back as the Peloponnesian Wars. St. Augustine assumed, by the lights of his day, that the decision for war lay solely with the magistrate. By Shakespeare’s time, audiences had become sufficiently sophisticated

Casting a dark look over the past year, and an even darker look at what lies ahead, the U.S. mayors’ annual Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness predicts a rise in both throughout the country—an increase that, sadly, is already well under way. Released in December, the report, which

Last fall’s sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., area brought gun control briefly back into the national consciousness. In the wake of those attacks, the Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend—who holds an impressive track record on gun safety—mad

In all of human history it would be difficult to find an example of a country that cut taxes as it prepared to go to war. But this is exactly what President Bush now proposes to do. In a worst-case scenario, the U.S. military may find itself under fire in three countries: Iraq, Korea and Afghanistan

Pope John Paul II’s message for this year’s World Day of Peace, Jan. 1, 2003, anticipates the 40th anniversary of Blessed Pope John XXIII’s landmark encyclical Pacem in Terris in April. At a time when the world seems more troubled than at any time since the collapse of Communism in

Even in a nation that is for the moment the richest and most powerful on earth there are many who must be glad to see the year 2002 go. Only an inattentive chronicler could fail to record that this was not a good year for the U.S. Catholic bishops, the managers of the Democratic Party, the frustrate