A federal appeals court on April 21 narrowly upheld a Texas law requiring public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
US Politics
Posted inCatholic Book Club
Trump, Pope Leo, William F. Buckley and John XXIII: An overview of Popes and Politics in America
A literary spat between ‘America’ and William F. Buckley 65 years ago is proving to have been eerily proleptic in light of Mr. Trump’s war of words against the pope and the latter’s assertion of church teaching on just war.
Posted inBooks
Review: Three books on the confusing, complex world of American politics
Three authors explore the American political landscape and offer provocative ideas on how to fix it—and if it is worth saving.
Posted inNews
Trump says he has ‘right to disagree’ with Pope Leo, ‘not necessary’ to meet him
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House April 16 that he does not see a meeting with Pope Leo XIV as “necessary” after his social media tirade.
Posted inShort Take
Dear JD Vance: The Iran war is very much Pope Leo’s business.
JD Vance appears to see delighting in death and making genocidal threats as not matters of morality—and thus something the pope should just keep quiet about.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
25 years later, ‘Nickel and Dimed’ is as relevant as ever.
Between spring 1998 and summer 2000, Barbara Ehrenreich took jobs that paid minimum wage or slightly above in Florida, Maine and Minnesota. What she detailed was a world of people living on a financial razor’s edge, unable to afford healthy food or decent housing, but still holding down two and three jobs to try to make ends meet.
Posted inDispatches
The war’s impact on the ‘forgotten’ Christians of Lebanon and Israel
The conflict between the Israeli military and Hezbollah militia has deeply affected Lebanon’s most marginalized populations.
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
Settler violence on West Bank threatens ancient Christian communities. Will U.S. help preserve them?
“What is happening to the Palestinians themselves is just sheer terror, designed to make the situation there so unlivable that they leave.”
Posted inFaith and Reason
Cesar Chavez and the spiritual immaturity of powerful men
Men who lack spiritual maturity have yielded—and will continue to yield—to a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde split between heroic persona and dark shadow.
Posted inShort Take
Clavicular and Catholicism: The anxious, aesthetic faith of the new religious right
A new Vatican document provides a convincing critique of the new, terminally online segments of the religious right.