No one in the congregation was paying much attention to what Father Pastor was saying about the deceased. They were focused on where he'd put his reading glasses.
The problems that bother us most are those we bring on ourselves. That's why Republicans are out of sorts with Trump: They created the beast they now want to slay.
It’s telling about today's Republican party: Kasich would probably be the better bet in the general election, while Walker has a better chance at the nomination.
The African-American Christian tradition has been vital in our history for reasons of the spirit but also as a reminder that the Bible is a subversive book.
My four-year-old son's questions make me smile. But they can also make me sweat: This is it, Mommy, a chance to set the kid straight or send him down the wrong road.
Restoring the order of the sacraments of initiation for children of Catholic parents might help us see adolescent catechesis as a worthy endeavor in its own right.
Right away, anyone who wants to discuss the implications of the shooting is scolded for “politicizing a tragedy.” Thus debate is delayed until the urgency passes.
Any who claim Francis is ignoring the Catholic past and inventing radical new doctrines has to reckon with the care he takes in paying homage to his predecessors.
Can Cardinal Pell – or any Catholic – simply ignore the new encyclical or the parts they don’t like? Many have done so before, not least concerning Humanae Vitae.
Hillary Clinton’s foes cast her as the candidate of the past, but it's the GOP, she insists, whose ideas come from long ago. Will voters see her in a new light?
What Beau Biden's funeral brought home is that the feelings nearly all of us -- left, right, and center -- have about family bonds transcend day-to-day arguments.
Marx derided religion as an opiate destined to fade away but ultra-orthodoxy is on the rise. What happened to make faith one of the most dynamic forces in the world?
Transparency has brought not openness but paralysis; the ability of legislative bodies to do their job requires a closed door behind which compromise can be reached.
Many modern American thinkers have asked, often and with anxiety, "What is man?" In his latest book, Mark Greif thinks we've outgrown this—and it's a good thing.
Bernie Sanders is reminding his party of something it often forgets: Government was once popular because it provided tangible benefits to large numbers of Americans.
It is a mark of how much has changed so quickly that Ireland's vote for gay marriage was the expected outcome, even if the breadth of that outcome was breathtaking.
Why have any sympathy for Jeb Bush? His apparent desire to stay true to his family ties. Loyalty is in short supply in our culture, so I admire it when I see it.
The dirty little secret of major-league banking is that it is not very profitable. And slowly, but inexorably, the behemoth American banks are shrinking.
What implicates morality more than how we as a society and individuals treat those who are cut off from the ladders of advancement and the treasures of prosperity?
With an electoral approach stoking English nationalism and anti-Scottish feeling, David Cameron faces a second-term challenge to contain Britain's disintegration.
The effect of violence on the lives of children: high rates of depression, criminal behavior, domestic violence, rape, substance abuse, and acquired disabilities.
At a gathering of the Secular Coalition for America, the Delaware Democrat spoke on his own faith as well as the need to respect those who choose not to believe.
Baltimore is Exhibit A for the frustration over how the costs of globalization and technological change have been borne almost entirely by the least advantaged.
The world’s democracies, perhaps especially our own, face a set of contradictions that are undermining faith in public endeavor and unraveling old loyalties.
… religious freedom and the need to combat discrimination against homosexuals. But … between religious freedom and combating discrimination is the frame for RFRA debates. …
Europe's nationalist parties attract attention but are hard to take too seriously, given the weight and continuity of the party systems in most countries.
It’s Hillary Clinton, not Jeb Bush, who will take former President George H. W. Bush as her role model. Her road to victory was blazed by Jeb’s dad in 1988.
With his concern for evidence and skepticism about the ability to transform complex systems, Daniel Patrick Moynihan is worth recalling in today's political climate.
In his general audience, Francis listed ways that children undergo their own “passion” (suffering), which he said was almost always caused by the “errors of adults."
Holy Thursday marks the tenth anniversary of the evening when the Vatican’s deputy Secretary of State announced to the world that Pope John Paul II had died.
The emergence of the Islamic state; the tension with Iran; and the sinister turn events have taken in Israel are attributed in Europe to American irresponsibility.
Want to prove you’re a good Catholic? You’ll have to do more than feed the hungry and teach your children the Lord’s Prayer in modern and dead languages.
There is no question that “mercy” is one of the guiding leitmotifs of Francis’s pontificate. And last week, he emphasized there is no sin that cannot be forgiven.
Francis is marking the second anniversary of his pontificate, and if anyone still has doubts about his views on the post-Vatican II Mass, they should doubt no more.
Highly skewed income distribution reduces social mobility. The locked-in advantages of children at the top of the income scale may already be irreversible.
Boehner’s inviting the leader of another nation to criticize our own president, and Netanyahu’s decision to accept, threaten to damage the U.S.-Israeli coalition.
There was no personal greeting from Pope Francis during a recent visit by New Ways LGBT pilgrims to Rome; the Vatican did not even properly acknowledge them.
When Paul VI celebrated the liturgy in Italian, it was a pledge to future generations that the church and her liturgy would lean toward outreach and mission.
Lawrence painted what he saw and what he knew: strivers and beggars, children and prostitutes, gamblers and preachers, and above all women, like his mother.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, at least 10 million fewer Americans are uninsured. The drop in the nation’s uninsured rate is the largest since the early 1970s.
The Holy See has publicly dealt with four bishops for committing abuse or trying to cover it up. But there has been no transparency on their status or whereabouts.
If a president says anything critical about what Christians may have done at any point in history, he's destined to be attacked for engaging in “moral equivalence."
Paul Ryan’s "envy economics" label invites a description of his own approach, which would slash taxes on the rich and cut programs for the poor and middle class.
