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I said no to something recently, something pretty cool. Not because I wasn’t interested, or because it wouldn’t be beneficial in some ways....

Poet and critic Dana Gioia, former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, signals his ambitious artistic tendencies and his firm spiritual commitments from the first poem of this new collect...

There's a broad consensus that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians depends on a two-state solution. So why doesn't it happen?

After all three Masses on the weekend of Jan. 19-20, parishioners of St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Springfield, Ill., were handed a statement written by Bishop Thomas Paprocki....

When a husband hides a wife's birth control pills or a boyfriend takes off a condom in the middle of sex in hopes of getting an unwilling girlfriend pregnant, that's a form of abuse called "reprodu...

The Arkansas Senate has passed a bill that lifts a ban on carrying concealed weapons in church....

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has asked the Vatican's highest appeals court to consider reviewing church rules on marriage annulments – a statement that may signal a change in tone more than...

Isaiah gives voice to God. God is amazed at our epistemic closure.

There is a line in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine that has come back to me recently: “After Columbine, it really sucked being a student in America.” Since the Newtown shooting, my son’s school has gone into “hard lockdown” mode twice.

The Barna Group's recent religious freedom poll is pretty interesting. Evangelicals overwhelmingly support religious freedom and are concerned about its possible demise—yet a majority of them also believe that "traditional Judeo-Christian values should be given preference."

Thomas thinks he should have been more suspicious of Lee and that his sermons should have had more of an effect on him. But these are not the immediate issues at hand.

Around 3:30, an SUV bearing the local TV station's logo pulled up. Thomas wondered how they knew about the service project.

The TV series Homeland raises some grave real-world questions.

Even as a Reformed minister, who is a product of the regrettable history of iconoclasm and who warns that our minds can be "factories of idols," I know every worshiping community has sacred items. 

Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and still wet from his baptism, comes back to his home synagogue, publicly claims that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy, and is praised by everyone. Then, within five verses, everyone in the synagogue is filled with rage. They drive him out of town so that they might hurl him off a cliff. What happened?

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VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Thursday (Jan. 24) defended the pope's choice to open a Twitter account even if it exposes him to insults and online abuse....

The breakaway Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina has won the latest round in its fight to secede from the national church....

A New Mexico lawmaker has drawn fire for proposing legislation to classify an abortion after a sexual assault as "tampering with evidence."...

A Catholic hospital in Colorado has argued in court documents that it is not liable for the deaths of twin seven-month-old fetuses because those fetuses are not people under state law....