China and India are preparing to join the industrialized nations, not only in prosperity, but also as major consumers of resources. It is good to see the world's two most populous nations overcoming their long legacy of poverty and building a bright economic future.

In 1967, historian Lynn White wrote an influential essay in which he blamed Christianity for the contemporary environmental crisis. White argued that Christianity, especially Western Christianity, "not only established a dualism of man and nature, but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends."

In July 2004, economist Jeffrey Sachs and some of his colleagues visited the Sauri sublocation of eight villages in western Kenya. The region is beset with AIDS, malaria and hunger.

The United Nations has come under increasing fire in recent years.

It has been blamed for failing to prevent the U.S. invasion of Iraq and for its Iraq food-for-oil program being mired in scandal. Its peacekeeping efforts have proved impotent in the face of mass slaughters in several nations over the last 15 years.

The history of salvation for the Hebrew people led them to believe that not only did God rescue them from slavery, but also that God's action was restricted to their people.

The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Religious Liberty would seem to be an unlikely candidate to topple a vast totalitarian empire that had murdered millions. It does not seem reasonable to suggest that a document that called for the Church and other faiths to have the right to erect their own buildings, worship freely, govern themselves and bring other people into the faith could bring down the Soviet Bloc.

When I began my current term as editor of the WCR 15 years ago, I was clear in my mind that I wanted our local coverage to be people oriented, to tell the stories of how faith was transforming the lives of Catholics in the archdiocese. At the time, I saw this solely as good journalism, as a way of developing a newspaper that would most interest our readers.

It has become a common belief in Western society that the best democracy is thoroughly secular. Such a democracy would be a blank slate, unencumbered by religion or political ideologies.

Backlash! Punishment for criminal activity is one of the most emotion-charged issues in the public sphere. The public is not deeply interested in the intricacies of the criminal justice system.

Surveys regularly show that politicians receive the lowest level of respect of any occupational group in society. If you want to be popular, become a firefighter. If you shun popularity, go into politics.