In The News

A narrative common in the West often pits Christianity and Judaism against Islam. It was not so in an earlier era. Christianity was a militant force during the 16th century. By 1550, Portugal ruled India’s best western ports, and India became a refuge for Iberian Jewish families, also known as New Christians, who fled the persecutions of the Inquisition. Jonathan Gil Harris, author and professor...

The world’s major religions urge both respect for nature’s power and gratitude for Earth’s bounty. No one should have been surprised by the encyclical of Pope Francis, rallying believers and non-believers in a global call: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that...

Pope Frances, leader of the Catholic Church, is calling for immediate action on climate change and poverty. “In the ‘Laudato Si (Praise Be), On the Care of Our Common Home,’ Francis calls for a change of lifestyle in rich countries steeped in a ‘throwaway’ consumer culture and an end to an ‘obstructionist attitudes’ that sometimes put profit before the common good,” reports Philip Pullella for...