Presidential elections are a revealing time in American life: the “silly season” they are often rightly called. Yet, such a time may also force discussion of issues that otherwise evade public consciousness. This is true for religious people as well.

Millions…

Charities are usually founded on high ideals and goals. But the difficult part comes when those behind the good cause must come up with the cold, hard cash to fund their charitable works.

One always supposes that there are benefactors out…

Having been my father's remote control, I recall one Sunday afternoon in the 1960s being told to stop and back up to the "educational channel," as it was called. The Sirico household were not big viewers of what was then Channel 13 in New York, so I wondered what my father was thinking.

I clicked over to the channel and my father said, "Sit down; you'll learn something."

Indeed, I did.

That was the first time I had heard or seen William F. Buckley, Jr., who died in his study on Wednesday while at work on yet another erudite page of insightful, urbane, and scintillating prose. Buckley (or Bill, as he almost insisted people call him) holds the record of sending me to the dictionary more than anyone I have ever read in the English language.

We pastors often tell the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. A landowner needs workers, so he offers them terms to pick for the day. The moral is intriguing and fascinating, and it concerns ownership, contract, jealousy, and other…

"Pope's New Book Criticizes Capitalism" said the Associated Press. It was speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, the hot selling book that Pope Benedict XVI began writing before he was elected Pope. Now it is big news and selling in the…

For those who closely follow politics, the connection between religious identity and voter allegiance is a bracing reality. The reality is this: A decisive sector within the American public votes not on matters of public policy but rather on religious…

A fight is brewing in California over a proposed $2.60-per-pack tax hike on cigarettes on the November ballot. In addition to various health organizations and non-profits that have come out in support of Proposition 86, a number of religious leaders…

The departure of Jim Towey, a decent and honorable public servant, as the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is a good occasion to reflect on how the Bush administration program has impacted American religious…

No, it doesn’t need to be. But neither should we be quick to take offense.

A big Christmas need not be an insincere Christmas. This point was made by Benedict XVI before he became pope. He noted in a 1977…

We have already heard a thousand times or more that the new pope is a conservative. As counterintuitive as this may sound, I believe that insofar as the new papacy has implications for economics and politics, it is in the…