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Last week Zohran Mamdani strengthened his reputation as a political kingmaker. Congressional candidates he endorsed defeated more traditional opponents in New York City Democratic primaries. Mamdani’s influence is clearly growing. Watching those results come in, I found myself thinking about a novel I published a few months ago, Against All Odds: How Zohran Mamdani Became President and Changed…

Last Friday, our family celebrated a memorial for my wife Peggy’s sister, Michele (Mitchy) DuRivage, a mother, wife, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, cousin, acquaintance and friend who transitioned from this life several weeks ago. After the funeral Mass in Katonah NY, we all gathered at our daughter Maggie’s splendid green house in nearby Westport CT to share reflections on Michele’s life. What…

I’ve been away from my blog for too long. But I have a good excuse. From the 5th to the 15th of June Peggy and I along with our whole immediate family including our 8 grandchildren were partying – on the island of Sifnos in Greece. The reason? June 5th   happened to be Peggy’s and my 50th wedding anniversary. Yes, 50 years! And what a journey that has been. Peggy recounted it in a beautiful…

Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas (MH) may well prove to be one of the most important moral documents of the twenty-first century. At a moment when artificial intelligence is being celebrated as humanity’s next great leap forward—or feared as its greatest threat—the pope offers something largely absent from public discussion: a coherent moral framework. Most political leaders approach AI in…

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), is already being compared to Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. Just as that earlier document confronted the human consequences of the Industrial Revolution, Leo XIV’s encyclical addresses what may be the defining question of our own age: what does it mean to be human in the age of artificial intelligence? The pope’s…

Readings for Pentecost Sunday: Acts 2: 1-11; Psalm 104: 1, 24-34; 1 Corinthians 12: 3b-7, 12-13; John 20: 19-23 Last Sunday thousands gathered on the National Mall in a celebration blending Christianity, nationalism, military imagery, and devotion to Donald Trump. Crosses stood beside flags. Speakers praised America as a specially chosen nation. Calls for “strong borders,” “Christian values,”…

I was listening to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! the other morning. The segment concerned Amnesty International and its latest report on the worldwide increase in capital punishment. According to Amnesty, the sharp rise in executions was driven largely by Iran. Fair enough. Executions are terrible. State repression is terrible. No civilized person should celebrate either one. But as I listened,…

More than a year ago, OpEdNews’ visionary editor-in-chief, Rob Kall, started a project called the Arc of Justice Alliance (AJA). Its original intent was to offer a progressive alternative to the Republican Project 2025. The latter’s goal is to reduce the federal government to a size (in the words of Republican operative Grover Norquist) that could be drowned in a bathtub. The AJA agenda would…

A brilliant Iranian-produced video has been making the rounds online. It’s simple—disarmingly so. In some versions it’s rendered in LEGO animation, in others with straightforward narration. But its central message lands with unusual force: “We love Americans—but not their leaders.” That line deserves careful attention. Because in a political culture saturated with noise, it cuts through with…

The reports came in the usual way—breaking news, partial details, a lot of urgency and not much clarity. Another alleged attempt on the life of Donald Trump. Another moment where we’re all supposed to stop and say, “How could this possibly happen here?” But that’s the part that rings hollow. Because if we’re honest—even just a little honest—the real question isn’t “How could this happen?” It’s…

The other day I found myself listening—really listening—to the background noise of our culture. Not the loud political arguments or the endless commentary about war and elections. Something more basic than that. It was the sound beneath it all. “Kaching.” It’s the sound of the cash register, the market ticker, the bottom line. It’s the unspoken assumption that whatever matters must be…

Not long ago, I wrote about what I called the “dangerous simplicity” of Pope Leo XIV’s claim that “God is never on the side of those who use violence.” At the time, the point may have seemed abstract—more a matter of theological nuance than urgent public concern. However, a recent exchange between JD Vance and Pope Leo XIV has brought the issue sharply into focus. In fact, somewhat ironically,…

Suddenly, everyone is talking about prayer and theology. That comes as a surprise to many who, since Harvey Cox’s The Secular City, have assumed that secularization had effectively removed God from serious political consideration. Yet recent controversies have forced the issue back into public view. The debate surrounding Pete Hegseth’s prayer about U.S. policy in Iran –so reminiscent of Mark…

It is a warning I have sounded for more than two decades now, in essays, lectures, and conversations with anyone willing to listen: the United States government has long been engaged in a quiet but persistent war against the Catholic Church. Not against all forms of Catholicism, to be sure. But against one particular expression of the faith, the one most faithful to its own deepest traditions,…

Readings for Second Sunday of Easter: Acts 2: 42-47; Psalm 118: 2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 Peter 1: 3-9; John 20: 19-31 What if life can be no different from what our senses relentlessly report? Turn on the news. Cities in Iran and beyond reduced to rubble. Children buried beneath concrete. Leaders speaking of “security” while entire populations live in fear. And at the same time, the slow,…

Readings for Easter Sunday:ACTS 10:34A, 37-43; PS 118: 1-2, 16=17, 22-23; COL 3:1-4; JN 20: 1-4. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Or is belief in a bodily resurrection no more credible than belief in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus? That question, provocative as it sounds, is not new. It has been quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — asked by serious biblical scholars for more than a…

Readings for Palm Sunday: John 12:12-16; Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:17-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14–15 This year we enter Holy Week while the world watches scenes of immense human suffering. In Gaza’s genocide, entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and thousands of children have been buried beneath the debris of bombs. In Iran, threats of widening war grow louder each day, with our…