Japan has had a pacifist constitution since the end of World War II. Authored by the United States, article 9 of the Japanese constitution prohibits the use of force to settle disputes. Now Japan’s re-elected prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who…

The symbolic Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been moved closer to midnight, a statement of how close the planet is to a global disaster. “It is now three minutes to midnight,” said Kennette Benedict, the…

“Raul and Fidel Castro were raised by a rosary-reciting, Catholic mother. They attended high school at the Jesuit-run Belen College, although Raul didn’t finish. Despite initially declaring Cuba atheists state, the Castro’s have regularly, if hypocritically, paid respect to the…

Expect to see a lot of political jockeying around Pope Francis during the 2016 presidential campaign. And you will probably see candidate policies highly aligned with Pope Francis, particularly concerning economics and social policies. Even non-Catholic potential candidates mention the…

Three gunmen stormed the offices of a French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo killing twelve and injuring five more. Those dead include the editor and the editor-in-chief of the magazine as well as other editorial staff during an editorial meeting. The…

As globalism expands, there are three political blocs that are rising, the non-democratic or authoritarian, which includes Russia and China and their orbit of smaller states, the extremist groups, like the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram, and the…

President Obama is increasingly allied with the Vatican on controversial policies. Pope Francis stands virtually shoulder-to-shoulder with the White House on a number of issues including income inequality and climate change. The White House and the Papacy secretly collaborated to…

The Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation have reached an epoch-making turning-point, said Rev. Martin Junge, General Secretary of The Lutheran World Federation. The relationship between Lutherans and Catholics is being transformed “from conflict to communion,” he said during…

On the Papal charter plane to the Philippines, Pope Francis told media that there are “limits to freedom of speech, especially when it insults or ridicules someone’s faith.” The Pope was referring to the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo studios…

California has had three years of low rainfall and is the worst drought in 1,200 years, says a new study conducted by Geophysical Research Letters. Record high temperatures and unusually low levels of rain and snow have been the main…

Faith leaders must work harder to prevent religiously motivated violence, says Jerry White, deputy assistant Secretary of State in the U.S. government’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. White was in Rome recently to promote a “Global Covenant of World…

Speaking at the International Discussion Club, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the establishment of a new world order. The annual forum, held in Sochi, Russia, brings together experts from dozens of countries to debate the role of Russia in…