In this Sunday's readings Job laments his "months of misery, and troubled nights," while the psalmist tells how the Lord "sustains the lowly." Though economic misery is a fact, how those in distress will be sustained is another matter . . . .

Saint Paul tries to be "all things to all, to save at least some," he writes in this Sunday's reading from the 1st Letter to the Corinthians. But after seven years of trying all sorts of programs to help the people of Afghanistan, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) programs continue to be plagued by mismanagement, ...

Jesus is kept busy in this Sunday's gospel healing the many sick people who were brought to him. In one bright spot on a dark economic horizon, it will become vastly cheaper for most people to keep their health insurance after losing a job if a provision in the current stimulus proposal makes it into law. ...

We hear in this Sunday's psalm that "the Lord rebuilds Jerusalem." In an effort to rebuild relations with the Jewish community that were damaged last week, the Vatican on Wednesday issued a statement demanding that a prelate who denied the Holocaust recant  ...

"We're better, not bitter."

Seventy percent of Americans think too much money was spent on the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Fifty-seven percent support campaign-spending limits, while 38 percent think candidates should be allowed to spend as much as they can raise.