The year before Barack Obama declared his intention to seek the office of US President, he gave a keynote speech at a conference sponsored by the progressive religious organization, Sojourners. It described Obama’s view of the relationship between politics and religion. To look at such a delicate subject in anything more than a cursory or [...]

With Mary Ann Glendon having declined to receive the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame —  because of the way she was being used as a way of balancing the university’s controversial and Bishop-defying decision to honor President Obama — one has to wonder exactly who Notre Dame will pick as their second choice. They will [...]

Lila Rose, a 20-year-old UCLA student, poses as only 13 years old to Planned Parenthood operatives, to see if they will obey all applicable state laws — like reporting statutory rape when Lila claims to have a 31-year-old boyfriend. Sometimes they seek to evade legal requirements, and their evasions get recorded on a hidden camera. [...]

Given that John Allen is a senior correspondent for the dubiously-based National Catholic Register, one might guess along what lines his articles might run. Until you read him. His writings are generally quite fair, and always illuminating. At some point he made an extremely emphatic turn away from things like his awful 2000 book on [...]

Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints for the Catholic Church in an outdoor ceremony today. Included was a 14th century monk who left his monastery to tend to plague victims, and succumbed himself. (And maybe an opportunity coming up for other martyrs of charity, given the latest news today.)

The outbreak of swine flu originating in Mexico has caused public Sunday mass celebrations in Mexico City to be canceled. Spanish announcment here, and more news here and here. (H/T Laurence England).

Today is World Malaria Day (I suspect a better name would be World Anti-Malaria Day). Go over here to read about what Catholic Relief Services is doing about malaria (they need money both for anti-mosquito nets and the education to use them properly), and then over here to send a donation. Remember what Archbishop Chaput [...]

It seems to me clear that authoritative Catholic teaching forbids the use of torture under any circumstances. However, some hold that torture might occasionally permissible in extreme situations. As emerged recently, Deal Hudson is one of those who do not see why torture might be occasionally permitted, and he has written on this. The real [...]

Archbishop Dolan is quickly stepping up to the challenges of being the newest Archbishop of New York. Father Zuhlsdorf over at What Does the Prayer Really Say? has a look through an interview Dolan gave to the New York Post, and likes it.

The Kansas Catholic Conference (the official voice of the Catholic Church in Kansas on matters of public policy) has responded to Governor Sebelius’ veto of a bill that would significantly aid the enforcement of Kansas’ existing late-term abortion law.
Kansas, despite having one of the strictest late-term abortion laws in the country, is internationally known as [...]

There’s an an approach to immigration over at Ascent to Mount Carmel that I really don’t get:
There’s a flu epidemic in Mexico right now.  Given the United States’ weak border security, it’s only a matter of time before it reaches us.

I looked up some example statistics and found that in 2004 there were about 240 [...]

It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize [...]

With the movie-version of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons about to be released, the director, Ron Howard, is eager to paint the movie in a positive light. So when William Donohue of the Catholic League complained of the makers’ “animus against all things Catholic”, Howard penned a note to the Huffington Post, complaining that the [...]

The possibility that the British Cardinal O’Connor might take up a place in the House of Lords (to explain this to US readers: it’s a sort of a Senatorial office, but with much less direct power) is continuing to cause controversy, since the Catholic Church has fairly strongly moved away from the idea that clergy [...]