In 2010, Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, who served in the White House under Ronald Reagan and both Bush presidents, wrote a book, “The City of Man,” about Christianity and politics. Christians, they wrote, best influence public policy by speaking and acting with grace and truth.

Every Monday morning for the past 30 years, members of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community in Washington, D.C. have been making their way across the Potomac River to pray and nonviolently witness for peace in front of the most symbolic war planning, war-making headquarters on earth: the Pentagon.

In upstate New York, a slim young nature lover who looked like St. Francis stopped on the roadside and handed us bananas and cupcakes just purchased from a meager budget. He cooked us a meal as we lounged in his tree house.

There is a lot of fear-mongering these days about immigrants. We’re told that we should fear them because they’re dangerous, untrustworthy criminals out to get us. I don’t really feel that way, but maybe it’s because I was born in an immigrant family.

We are hearing the voice of young people — the students who have experienced school shootings — because not only their dignity but their very lives are in jeopardy. It is the adults, especially those in the church, whose voices are muted and muffled.

We Catholics of the Portland metro area have noticed both of you tearing your hair out. We are here to help.

Our minivan is one big silver stereotype.

Granola bar wrappers on the floor. Cheerios stuck between seats. Baseball gear rolling around the back. I'll admit our car is overlooked; I'd never let the house get this dirty. It's also much-maligned, as I crack jokes regularly about minivan life.

Catholics are rightly horrified by the reported sexual exploitation of boys and men by Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, now resigned from the College of Cardinals. Other church leaders knew of his misdeeds but remained silent and kept advancing him to leadership posts. We even hear of churchmen involved in grave offenses who protect and advance each other in a conspiracy of shame.

Things have come to a sorry pass in Canada. Trinity Western University, the country's largest privately funded Christian university, was established by the Evangelical Free Church of America in 1962. It aims to promote "total student development through ... deepened commitment to Jesus Christ and a Christian way of life."

With the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court, interest groups and politicians are insisting that any replacement must pledge to uphold the court's Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.

On July 25, 1968 – in the midst of the “sexual revolution” which aggressively promoted premarital sex, pornography, homosexual activity and artificial contraception – Pope Paul VI with the courage of a prophet gave the Catholic Church and world an entirely different message.

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of "Humanae Vitae." The world has changed dramatically since Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical, mostly in ways he foretold.

In its June 26 decision on freedom of speech, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a California law that forced pro-life pregnancy aid centers to tell pregnant women how to get an abortion.

In the early months of his papacy, Pope Francis felt the urgent need to courageously preach on the actual existence of the devil, and the grave dangers of not taking his existence seriously (see: 1 Peter 5:8-9).

Plans for a major international fund campaign to secure in excess of $1 million designed “to mount a determined effort to stem the world vocations crisis and the critical priest shortage” were announced this week by Serra International at the organiza­tion’s convention in Portland.

We are all God’s children. God hears the cry of the children and their parents. Do we? It is time to listen, stand up and speak out.

John Kingery

This dictate has taken our God of abundance, who fed the crowds with five loaves and two fish so they wouldn’t go away hungry, to a God of scarcity.

WASHINGTON — Ever since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 -- longhand for "welfare reform" -- became law, the federal government has imposed work requirements for adults receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money.

The bread becomes the body of Christ. The wine becomes the blood of Christ. To think and believe like a Catholic, one is called upon to make some extraordinary observations.

What are some leading causes of heartless conflicts in life?

Being family is hard these days for many people. It isn't just the age-old tensions of kith and kin described in so many novels and plays. It is the modern pressures of distance, distraction and fragmentation.

Very reasonable people had rather intense disagreements about what they were hearing. (I heard "laurel" and my son heard "yanny." We simply had to agree to disagree.)

In some circles, however, this "comprehensive" effort to prevent suicide has a glaring loophole. People facing serious physical illness have been tagged by a well-funded advocacy campaign as needing suicide "assistance" rather than suicide prevention.

VATICAN CITY — A Vatican court found Msgr. Carlo Alberto Capella, a former staff member at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, guilty of possessing and distributing child pornography.

WASHINGTON — Bipartisan disagreement on how to fix the country's immigration system led to failure once again as lawmakers on Capitol Hill turned down one immigration bill June 21 and postponed a vote on a second proposal, which also has a slim opportunity of passing.

WASHINGTON — Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, said he will no longer exercise any public ministry "in obedience" to the Vatican after an allegation he abused a teenager almost 50 years ago has been found credible.

In Mexico, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the successful ousting of the French incursion, a struggle for independence, a defeat of the European powers and a reversal of the conquest of Mexico. 

Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds annually, about $80 million of it from Title X. The organization performs over one-third of all abortions in the country, and abortion is what it provides to 96 percent of its pregnant clients.

VATICAN CITY — Leading thousands of people in prayer, Pope Francis said he hoped the upcoming summit between the United States and North Korea would lead to lasting peace.

So for now, Christians who accept the millennia-old definition of marriage have as much constitutional protection as racists and pornographers. And some justices disagree even with that.