With his new book, American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America (Ignatius Press), mild-mannered Russell Shaw has become the bull in the china shop of U.S. Catholic history, knocking heroes off pedestals and overturning conventional story-lines—all in aid of trying to understand why the Church in America is in precarious position today vis-à-vis the ambient public culture and the government.

Christians in the United States who imagined that, whatever tribulations or hardships they have to endure, they would not include speeches by the president of the United States and the policies of the United States government had better reconsider, in light of President Barack Obama’s April 26 address to the annual Planned Parenthood Gala at Washington’s Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

Some 23 years ago, Ambassador Max Kampelman—former nuclear arms reduction negotiator with the Soviet Union and Counselor to the Department of State—decided that I needed a bit of diplomatic experience and invited me to be a public member of the U.S. delegation he would lead to the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, in the summer of 1990.

It was a brief greeting to former colleagues. But if you read Pope Francis’ April 18 letter to the Argentine bishops’ conference closely, you get a glimpse of the man, his convictions and his vision.

Baseball and movies don’t often play well together...

The recent papal interregnum and conclave underscored the importance of re-forming, and reforming, the College of Cardinals.

April 10, 2013 - Certain ritual encounters have now become standard operating procedure for a new pope. In each of these meetings, Pope Francis has done something surprising, in his low-key, gentle way.

April 3, 2013 - If the conclave of 2005 was about continuity—extending the legacy of John Paul II by electing his closest theological advisor as his successor—the conclave of 2013 was about governance.

In a Sistine Chapel homily, given to the cardinals who had elected him pope the evening before, the new bishop of Rome, reflecting on the dialogue between Jesus and Peter at Caesarea Philippi (Matt 16:13-25), challenged those who had just laid a great cross on his shoulders to deepen their own commitment to Christ crucified...

March 20, 2013 - ROME—When Pope Francis stepped out onto the central loggia of St. Peter’s on the night of March 13, I thought of the man I had met in his Buenos Aires office 10 months before: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., who was looking  forward to laying down the burden of leadership and devoting himself to prayer, reflection and study.