The confrontations between the GOP, the Democrats and their supporters in this health care debate have reached hysterical proportions. But not once in all the media coverage have I heard a conservative Republican pontificating on the sacredness of the doctor-patient relationship asked how one reconciles that position with the governmental...

For a long time now, long enough for the Catholic Church to shrink more than any other denomination in the United States, the targets of its greatest condemnation have been women and the men who support them. While losing 30 million followers in recent years, the church has saved its...

Barack Obama's commitment to expanding support for faith-based initiatives has a lot more bugs in it than the insistence by such organizations that they can discriminate in hiring. He is, apparently without realizing it, wading into the most contentious territory in state-church relations today: the conscience wars.

In recent years,...

In his oh-so-mild scolding of the out-of-control Father Michael Pfleger, Chicago Cardinal Francis George, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, took issue with the raging priest's endorsement of a political candidate and with his horrifying racism. But George never said one word about the misogyny that came through...

On Benedict XVI's much-heralded first papal visit to the United States, we witnessed once again the spectacle and pageantry of the Catholic Church's unapologetically all-male hierarchy.

Despite the blatant exclusion of women from the Catholic Church's highest levels of power, I could find no piece in the New York...

Talking about the Catholic Church without talking about the place of women is like talking about the history of South Africa while ignoring apartheid. It completely denies the realities of the Catholic Church today, which include:

* The exclusion of women from the ranks of cardinals, bishops, priests...

Adding to his string of interdictions, suppressions, canonical admonitions and excommunications, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke on March 14 issued an ominous written "Declaration of Excommunication" [PDF] against two St. Louis women who dared to join the arbitrarily all male, hopelessly depleting ranks of the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Once again, the Catholic hierarchy, this time in the person of Scranton, PA, Bishop Joseph Martino, is a model of hypocrisy. Implored by Catholic school teachers to have the Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers [PDF] recognized as their collective bargaining unit, Bishop Joseph Martino issued a resounding "no."...

My Google "Catholic" Alert today listed two articles in this order: "Women Warned Against Catholic Ordination," followed by "Catholic Bishop Backs Brothel Regulation."

That about sums it up. In yet another empty defense of the Catholic Church's blatant discrimination against women who it refuses to ordain, St. Louis,...

To the great dismay of Catholic bishops, Connecticut's lawmakers have mandated that all of the state's hospital emergency rooms, including Catholic-run hospitals, must make emergency contraception for pregnancy prevention available to every rape victim who comes through their doors.

The Connecticut Catholic bishops are not happy. They have agreed,...

In his opening address to the 5th General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops, Benedict XVI denounced capitalism and Marxism as well as liberation theology, which sees Christ as a social revolutionary, devoted to the marginalized and the poor, a devotion considered fundamental to the Christian message.

While...

Here comes Easter. Here, too, comes another opportunity for the U.S. bishops to disprove the accusation, long raging in the public square, that the Church fathers suppressed the truth of women's leadership in the early Church and do so to this day. Once again, that opportunity will be missed.

How disingenuous is this. The same magazine, Newsweek, that joined in the symbolic stoning of Judith Regan for daring to publish O.J. Simpson's memoir of murder is promoting its current issue with an article on the subject with a vengeance. Editor-in-chief Jon Meacham in his editorial proudly declares: "For the...

Imagine this conversation at the altar rail: Are you now or have you ever been a member of Call to Action? If the answer is yes, and you live in the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, there will be no Communion for you. Nor will you be able to participate in...

From our avowedly pro-life, -pregnancy, -snowflake-baby, -fetus, -embryo, and -blastocyst Administration has come a brand new law concerning babies. In the throes of a tight election year, we might expect an attempt to garner some votes by replacing the inane idea of health-care accounts as the solution to 40 million...

The battle over the South Dakota law banning all abortions except to save a woman's life--being put up for a vote on November 7--is focused on the law's lack of exceptions for rape, incest and health of the mother. Those are crucial exceptions. The pro-choice advocates are right to fight...

A subject on "Real Time with Bill Maher" last Friday night (10/13/06) was whether or not Jack Straw, head of the House of Commons, should have announced that he doesn't want to talk to women in burkas anymore. "It's a visible statement of separation and difference," he told the press....

Amidst a growing media buzz, the "We Had Abortions" issue of Ms. Magazine will hit the newsstands next week. Listed by name will be over 1,000 of the 5000 women who reportedly have signed Ms.'s petition acknowledging that they've had abortions. The rest of the names will appear on Ms.'s...