People around the world recently took notice of two high-profile events in the life of the Church: the inauguration of the pontificate of His Holiness Pope Francis, and the enthronement of the new spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend...

Nous devons saluer la décision courageuse de Sa Sainteté le pape Benoît XVI de prendre sa retraite et laisser le siège de Pierre à un autre.

Alors qu'il commençait à montrer des signes de son âge, beaucoup craignaient de revivre les dernières années de son prédécesseur.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." How often have we heard this slogan? It is a tautology -- it can't help being true. No gun ever got up by itself, aimed at a person and pulled the trigger. And people have always killed people, of course. Special forces train...

I went to see the Ridley Scott movie Prometheus
recently. What struck me -- besides the quality of the acting, direction, amazing sets, and excellent effects -- was the theme of faith.

If you have not seen the film, do not read on, unless you don't...

Cardinal Timothy Dolan appeared on Face the Nation on Easter Sunday. The New York Times reported on the conversation:

Asked by Mr. Schieffer if he thought religion was playing too much of a role in politics, the cardinal said, "No, I don't think so at all."

...

Human rights: what are they? Americans, at least, will immediately think of Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." There is a connection between God and...

God does not exist.

People exist. Things in the universe exist. The planets in their courses exist. While there are clear limits to our knowledge, everyone knows what it means to exist.

God does not exist.

If God does exist, then that is not God. All existing things are relative...

For many years, I have been studying marriage from the point of view of a theologian, convinced that the Church's understanding of marriage is historically and presently one of its weaker endeavors.

One thing I have learned is the intimate connection between marriage and economics: all societies practice marriage, and...

This is the last of four posts arguing that capitalism has an intrinsic morality. The first post disputed those who think that capitalism cannot have a moral dimension. Part two establishes that there is a moral context in which business is done.

This is the third of four posts arguing that capitalism has an intrinsic morality. The first post disputed those who think that capitalism cannot have a moral dimension. Part two establishes that there is a moral context in which business is done. Part three (this one)...

Since my post on the morality of capitalism, in which I promised an argument about the morality of capitalism, the Occupy Wall Street and Los Indignados movements have broken out around the world. As the recent controversy surrounding Occupy London and St. Paul's Cathedral has shown, these movements...

The Anniversary: I scanned the congregation from my seat at the altar of the little church in Paris, Notre Dame de Chaldée. Their faces have become familiar to me: young women in black clutching small children, their long black hair and dark eyes blending into their widow's weeds. And the...

In the July 25 issue of the New Statesman there is a feature on the replies atheists give to the question of why they do not believe. This gave equal space to non-believers, since the magazine had printed in a previous issue replies from believers.

The answers...

André Comte-Sponville is a popular French philosopher. When I say "popular" I mean that his writing sells books. One of his bestsellers is entitled Is Capitalism Moral?

In a nutshell, he says that capitalism cannot be an activity constrained by anything other than the laws of the market,...

The famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has said it again: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." Hmmm...

We read...

Two major media events splashed across the screens of the world: the royal wedding and the beatification of John Paul II. These showed vividly the similarities and differences between the Church of England, Anglicans/Episcopalians in general and the Roman Catholic Church.

Once you step out of the inner circles, the...

On Monday last, I went to Charles de Gaulle airport with members of the Association d'entraide aux minorités d'Orient (Organization supporting minorities in the Orient) or AEMO, to meet family members of people wounded in the October 31 attack on the Baghdad cathedral. At the request of the...

The world watches Libya and worries, and for weeks the churches have been praying for her people. The United Nations has decided at last to support the Libyan people against the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, ending a period of indecision during which Gaddafi's army of mercenaries were able to use modern...

Winston Churchill famously said, "It is better to jaw-jaw than war-war." Clearly, it is only when dialogue has ceased that the fighting can begin. But it is equally true that two sides -- nations, religions, tribes -- are either on the path to peace, or the path to war. There...

Editor's note: The following is a statement by the Rt. Rev. Pierre W. Whalon, Bishop in charge of Episcopal Churches in Europe, on the murder of David Kato.

David Kato paid the ultimate price for being gay in Uganda. A leader of Sexual Minorities Uganda, which seeks to change fellow...