The Conversation

Pope Francis highlighted the idea of accompaniment in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium ("Joy of the Gospel").

Recent statements continue U.S. bishops' legacy of opposing virtually every major U.S. military intervention since Vietnam, except the invasion of Afghanistan, writes Gerard F. Powers.

The trailer for the film "The Testament of Ann Lee" is riveting and unsettling — just as the celibate Shakers were to the average observer during their American emergence in the 1780s. Fascination with the Shakers is enduring, as are they.

Is peace worth having if it's unjust? Is justice worth pursuing if it prolongs war? Those are questions as troubling as they are old. Ceasefires built on coercion or exhaustion inevitably fail because they do not resolve the conflict's causes.

Images of the son of God depict him as petting lions, rescuing another boy from a tower, and standing on a sunbeam.

The region's religious decline shows a surprising difference from patterns elsewhere. While fewer Latin Americans are identifying with a religion or attending services, personal faith remains strong.

Humans are, in effect, hardwired to sing and dance, and we likely evolved to do so. In every known culture, evidence exists of music, singing or chanting.

The emphasis on the Pilgrims' 1620 landing and 1621 feast erased a great deal of religious history and narrowed conceptions of who belongs in America — at times excluding groups such as Native Americans, Catholics and Jews.

In the history of North America, there were others who had also seen the dangers of certain types of government and had designed their own checks and balances to guard against tyranny: the Native Americans.

U.S. renewable electricity generation, including wind, solar and hydro power, has nearly tripled since 1995, 

Landor v. Louisiana stands out because it underscores the complexity and far-reaching nature of religious freedom laws in the United States and the increasingly diverse faith traditions to which they apply.

While more Native Americans living on reservations attend college than in decades prior, just 10.3% earned college degrees in 2020.

For over a century, coal has transformed central Appalachia. All the while, religion has been transforming in the mountains, too. Labor and religion are deeply entangled here.

The question at the center of the case, Chiles v. Salazar, is whether a therapist who uses talk therapy to try to convince minors to change their sexual orientation or gender identity is protected by a First Amendment right to free speech.

Tragedies like the Sept. 28, 2025 shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Michigan are part of a longer pattern.

Faculty overwhelmingly agree that "colleges and universities should provide support for students of all religious, secular, and spiritual identities and backgrounds."

"Confession is hard," Dorothy Day once said. "You do not want to make too much of your constant imperfections and venial sins, but you want to drag them out to the light of day as the first step in getting rid of them."

"Making that American dream a reality involves seeing farmworkers for who they are, I believe: vital members of the body politic who reconnect all Americans to nature through the foods they eat," writes history professor Doug Sackman.

What we do in our free time says a lot about what makes us happy. 

States must exercise their full diplomatic leverage to pressure Israel to let aid in at the scale required to avert famine, writes Amra Lee, PhD candidate in protection of civilians at Australian National University.