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[When the Holy Father finds himself on the same page with leading academics, he should worry—ed.] Al Jazeera posted an article, “Bernie Sanders, the pope and the moral imperative of systemic change,” by Gar Alperovitz, the co-chair with James Gustave Speth of The Next System Project. Speth, former administrator of the United Nations Development Program, put his name on its 1994 “Human Development Report,” which openly promoted global taxes for world government. The “Next System” is another name for the replacement of global capitalism by global socialism. Those endorsing this project, in addition to Alperovitz and Speth, include: • Jane...

"He was just kind of left by himself," a friend of Richard Shoop commented to reporters. I never met Shoop, but I nearly ran into him a few nights ago at a Nordstrom in Paramus, N.J. He had just shot a rifle in the air there, starting a mass panic and police lockdown that ended in Shoop committing suicide. Like every other customer and worker in the mall at the time of the incident, I'm unharmed -- Shoop evidently wasn't prepared to hurt anyone but himself. I just can't get Shoop off my mind. Based on the media testimony...

On March 13, 2013, around 12:25 pm, I was standing behind a podium in a classroom at the law school at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I was speaking there at the invitation of the school’s Federalist Society. Unexpectedly, in mid-sentence, my cell phone vibrated. I pulled it out of my pocket, flipped it open, and saw on the screen, “New Pope has been elected.” It was a text from my wife, Frankie, and was followed by similar texts from my three siblings and a phone call from my parents, who, wisely, don’t text. Seconds later, from the...

...The pontiff exhorted Mafiosi to change their ways, issuing the call Sunday, a day after the beatification of an Italian priest in Palermo who was slain in 1993 by mobsters after he defiantly preached against the Mafia...

Many millions of Catholics around the world were joyous with the naming of a new pope -- a holy man from the Third World no less. Even in choosing his name, Pope Francis is emphasizing a devotion to the poor, and humility in his clothing and manners. The liberal media should be lapping this up. There was an accurate recounting of the global rejoicing, especially in Argentina. There were hopeful words about his pastoral modesty. But as the day came for the pope to be installed, the natural secular liberal nastiness toward the oldest Christian faith bubbled up in demands...

One of the first official acts of the newly installed Pope Francis was to reach out to the Jewish community of Rome, as his predecessor Pope Benedict had done, and he is being greeted warmly by many Jewish leaders worldwide. For most of the last 1,500 years, though, Catholic-Jewish relations have not been so warm. In fact, there was a time when the Catholic Church was rocked with a scandal: It was alleged that the Pope himself was Jewish. But that was almost 1,000 years ago, and the first order of business is to note how well received Pope Francis...

Rome -- "May God forgive you." That's Cardinal Timothy Dolan's translation of a joke that Pope Francis told the College of Cardinals a day after being elected the 267th pontiff. Having watched the prayerful mien of some of the cardinals going into the papal conclave that would elect Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio pope, I have reason to believe that God had something to do with Papa Francisco, as the Romans call their bishop. Others, of course, see it otherwise. "I don't think he's what we need right now in the Catholic Church," Madeline Cuomo, the sister of New York...

"The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith," wrote Hilaire Belloc after that bloodbath we call World War I. "Either Europe will return to the Faith or she will perish." By 1938, Belloc concluded Christian Europe was done: "The bad work begun at the Reformation is bearing its final fruit in the dissolution of our ancient doctrines -- the very structure of society is dissolving." He was right. Europe is the dying continent. And looking back at the history of the Old Continent, we see the truth of G.K. Chesterton's insight: When men cease to believe in God, they...

By the time you read this, the world’s billion-plus Roman Catholics may have a new pope. And when the black smoke of Tuesday’s indecisive first vote has turned to the white smoke of final decision, don’t be surprised if the cardinals have chosen… a Catholic pope. After the election of Benedict XVI in 2005, I wrote that the cardinals had correctly ignored the desires of some people to install a wimpish equivocator willing bend with the winds of compromise. I believe the cardinals will show the same wisdom in 2013. In other words, the cardinals will choose someone who can...