A new online game has been launched by a nonprofit organization devoted to ending extreme poverty. The game, Survive125, helps players to get some idea of what it is like to live in extreme poverty, a reality for 1.3 billion people, by challenging them to survive one month on $1.25 a day. While playing the part Read more
There is no easy way to reduce the number of children who are trying to solve their problems by using alcohol and drugs. Any effective campaign to address child substance addiction must involve the whole community. According to a report in the Waikato Times, in the past 18 months 72 children with full-blown addictions have Read more
Two studies released Sunday may act like brakes on popular social-science assertions that gay parents are the same as — or maybe better than — married, mother-father parents. “The empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go,” Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said in his study in Social Read more
The Catholic Church is like Fiat-Chrysler. Slumping in Italy and Europe, it is coming back strong in the United States and has its most promising market in the rest of the world. With a clue about who the future pope will be. The nation that has the largest number of Catholics today is Brazil, with Read more
“Viewed overall, the state of the Church is not too encouraging. In the space of a single generation, the deepening dearth of priests will lead to the collapse of the entire structure of parish administration, and I cannot see sufficient courage or creativity among those who have assumed responsibility for running the Church as an institution Read more
In moments of crisis, there’s a natural desire among many Catholics to rally around the flag, meaning to show support for the church and the pope. It’s not about denial, because Catholics are nothing if not sober realists about the church’s failures. It’s instead about saying to the world that despite it all, there’s still Read more
Take a look around you and, in cars, shopping centres and restaurants, chances are you’ll find young children engrossed, not in the world around them, but in their new digital reality. Australians have smartphones and tablet computers gripped in their sweaty embrace, adopting the new internet-enabled technology as the standard operating platform for their lives, Read more
Last week there was shock and outrage around the globe at the massacre of scores of women and children in Syria by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Part of the tension causing the present conflict is the fact that Assad and his supporters belong to the minority Shia Alawite sect, about 10 per cent Read more
(Reuters) – Just after dawn on Wednesday, May 23, Paolo Gabriele said goodbye to his wife, passed by the bedrooms of his three children and left to start another day in the service of the man Roman Catholics believe is the vicar of Christ on Earth. By the end of the day, Pope Benedict’s butler Read more
Last week, Gallup released new data that, at first glance, appeared to show a significant change in Americans’ perspectives on abortion. The number of Americans who identify as “pro-choice” has dropped six points since last July, from 47 percent to 41 percent, while half (50 percent) of Americans identify as “pro-life.” Given the charged election year atmosphere, Read more