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Despite a recent strongly worded clarification from Rome, confusion is continuing to be stirred up over the Catholic Church’s practice of refusing Communion to those who are divorced and remarried. A prominent curial cardinal, and favorite of Pope Francis, has defied the Vatican’s doctrinal office, saying that he expects a change. Cardinal Walter Kasper has said bluntly, and in direct opposition to the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), that the rules will shortly be changed to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to be admitted to Holy Communion.

The old U.S. ruling class had plenty of problems. But are we really better off with a country run by the self-involved, over-schooled products of modern meritocracy?

While the vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas, only about half say they see it as mostly a religious holiday, according to a recent Pew Research study. One third of those polled consider it a cultural celebration focused on exchanging gifts and spending time with family. While 86 percent of Americans say they plan to attend a gathering of family or friends on Christmas Eve or Christmas and purchase presents for loved ones, only 54 percent plan to attend a religious service over the holiday that theologically observes the birth of Jesus Christ.

U.S. home resales fell sharply in November to their lowest level in nearly a year, hurt by a rise in interest rates since the spring and ongoing price increases that have shut some home buyers out of the market. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said on Thursday that sales of previously owned homes dropped 4.3 percent last month, the third monthly fall in a row, to an annual rate of 4.90 million units. That was the lowest annual rate since December 2012, and well below the median forecast in a Reuters poll of a 5.03 million unit pace. "It...

The recession ended in mid-2009. Since then spending on services has lagged spending on durable goods by a huge margin. Why? A record number of Millennials, adults aged 18 to 32, put off household formation and stay at home to live with parents. Why? No job and/or huge college debt with no way to pay it back. The jobless rate for Americans aged 18 to 19 years old stood at 19.2%. Unemployment among 20- to 24-year-olds is 11.6 percent. In contrast, the overall unemployment rate is 7%. Kids Living in Basements a Drag on U.S. Services Spending

The last year marked a number of milestones for the gay marriage movement, as it adds to its list of legal and legislative victories, earning approval from a majority of Americans along the way. The two largest victories came from the Supreme Court in June, when justices struck down the Defense of Marriage Act preventing same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits, and invalidated an effort to restore California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage... On the legislative front, six states, Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, Hawaii and Illinois, legalized gay marriage in 2013, with marriages taking place in each state...

For years, American opinion on gay marriage has been shifting. Now lawmakers are in a mad dash to catch up. In less than two weeks, seven senators--all from moderate or Republican-leaning states--announced their support, dropping one by one like dominos. Taken together, their proclamations reflected a profound change in the American political calculus: For the first time, elected officials from traditionally conservative states are starting to feel it's safer to back gay marriage than risk being the last to join the cause... "They're reflecting what they're seeing in the polls--except the most extreme of the Republican base," former New Jersey...

In mid-November, a series of national surveys included tantalizing nuggets suggesting that Millennials -- America's youngest voters -- were turning against the man they'd overwhelmingly supported for president twice. Young people were especially unforgiving on questions about Barack Obama's honesty and trustworthiness, a dramatic turn of events. But that data was derived from relatively small sub-samples of broader polls. Would a coast-to-coast survey of exclusively 18-to-29 year olds confirm or belie those apparent trends? We have our answer, courtesy of a new poll commissioned by Harvard University's Institute of Politics: Young Americans are turning against Barack Obama and Obamacare, according...

One of the most prominent white separatists in the country is distancing himself from a white supremacist who faces terrorizing charges for allegedly threatening people in a North Dakota town he’s trying to turn into an Aryan enclave. Tom Metzger, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and founder of the White Aryan Resistance, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he has instructed his attorney to return property in Leith that Craig Cobb has deeded to him. … Cobb, 62, and his friend, 29-year-old Kynan Dutton, are accused of terrorizing people in Leith with guns over the...

The latest update of Stimson’s policy mood series suggests that the American public in 2012 was more conservative than at any point since 1952. (Actually, since mood in each year is estimated with some error, it seems safer to say that the current level of conservatism roughly equals the previous highs recorded in 1980 and 1952.) While the slight increase in conservatism from 2011 to 2012 is too small to be significant, it continues a marked trend that began as soon as Barack Obama moved into the White House.

Of all the nations on the entire planet, the United States is the most lonely place to be. We have the highest percentage of one person households on the entire globe, and the average size of our households has been steadily decreasing. Studies have shown that the number of close friends that Americans have is falling, and we have the highest divorce rate in the world by a wide margin. So why is this happening? Does this have anything to do with the fact that America is abandoning the traditional family structure? Back in the 1960s, the “sexual revolution” fundamentally...

Today's young parents are confronted with a dilemma; should they obey the clear, strict instructions of the neighborhood school and make sure their child is vaccinated before school starts, or should they 'just say no'. Some folks on side of receiving immunization shots are quick to point out the worrying resurgence of various diseases most Americans thought were almost wiped out. Diseases such as measles, mumps and whooping cough have largely been held in check because of available immunization injections. In 2011 there were 167 cases of Whooping Cough reported. In 2013 there have been 352 so far. These almost...

**SNIP** Whites lost their No. 1 status to Latinos in 19 suburban districts spread across the six-county area of Cook, DuPage, Will, Lake, Kane and McHenry. Blacks were displaced by Latinos as the leading group in nine other districts, including the city of Chicago. This year’s school report card shows that minorities make up nearly half the students in Illinois public schools. And, of those minorities, Hispanic students have eclipsed blacks over the last 10 years as the largest minority, 24 percent.

Seven years ago this fall, a young journalist named Collin Hansen wrote a cover story for Christianity Today titled "Young, Restless, Reformed: Calvinism Is Making a Comeback—and Shaking Up the Church." In it he remarked: Partly institutional and partly anecdotal, [the evidence for the resurgence] is something a variety of church leaders observe. While the Emergent "conversation" gets a lot of press for its appeal to the young, the new Reformed movement may be a larger and more pervasive phenomenon. Two years later, Hansen released his movement-defining book Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists (Crossway, 2008). Traveling to destinations like the Passion...

Many years ago I was taught that the essence of heaven is the Beatific Vision. That is, one will look upon the glorious and radiant face of God, and find in that look the fulfillment of all desires, and a joy (beatus) beyond all telling.And surely this description remains both true and worth repeating. However, I have noticed that some get stuck on the the word “vision” and to some extent on the word “face,” and tend to reduce the experience to a kind of “static” (unchanging) vision.For our experience of the “face” of another is that it does not...

An almost unfathomable gap divides public attitudes on basic issues involving gender, race, religion and politics in America, fueled by dramatic ideological and partisan divisions that offer the prospect of more of the bitter political battles that played out in Washington this month. A new ABC News/Fusion poll, marking the launch of the Fusion television network, finds vast differences among groups in trust in government, immigration policy and beyond, including basic views on issues such as the role of religion and the value of diversity in politics, treatment of women in the workplace and the opportunities afforded to minorities in...

There's been a baby boom in Washington, D.C. Census figures show the number of children younger than 5 has grown by almost twenty percent to 39,000 over the past 3 years. The number of children ages 5 to 13 rose 7 percent. The biggest increases came from white infants and toddlers, which are up 34 percent. The rise is largely being attributed to new parents in their 30's and early 40's. There were fewer kids 14 and older during that same time span, suggesting that some parents are moving out of the city when their children reach high school.

In a fiery speech to social conservatives Friday, Virginia lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson blasted the media for questioning his positions on social issues. Jackson, a bishop, said that when he first got into the race he was asked by reporters about controversial statements he has made concerning Planned Parenthood (which he once compared to the Ku Klux Klan) and gay marriage. “Well, I want to go on record here,” Jackson said, speaking at the Values Voter Summit. “I didn’t apologize then, I don’t apologize now and I will never apologize for standing up for the truth.”

Tortillas and salsa are now outselling popular American foods like burger and hot dog buns, and ketchup. Experts say that as the Hispanic population in the U.S. grows, the consumption of Latin American foods, and Mexican foods in particular, continues to increase as well. This is similar to the way that Italian food became integrated into U.S. culture. “When you think about pizza and spaghetti, it's the same thing,” said Jim Kabbani, CEO of the Tortilla Industry Association. “People consider them American, not ethnic. It's the same with tortillas.” According to consumer research firm Packaged Facts, Latin American foods and...

This week we explore sales at casual restaurants, what people think of Congress, where business people really eat and more. Malcolm Knapp reported that September sales were down 1.9 percent over sales of last year for the 50-plus casual restaurant chains that participate in the Knapp-Track program. Same-store guest counts dropped 3.6 percent while check averages were up 1.7 percent on a year-to-year basis. This was the fourth consecutive month that companies included in the Knapp-Track report posted negative same-store sales. In a bit of better news, family dining and upscale steak houses Malcolm Knapp also tracks are trending positive...