A decade ago, New York City officials were so reluctant to give out food stamps, they made people register one day and return the next just to get an application. The welfare commissioner said the program caused dependency and the poor were “better off” without it.

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A new study on the faith of Catholic college students produced a Rorschach moment in today's church that was neatly typified by contrasting headlines in the Catholic media:

"Catholic colleges weakening students' faith, new study finds," declared the conservative-leaning Catholic World News.

"Study: Catholics at Catholic colleges less likely to stray from church," went the headline from Catholic News Service, the media outlet of the American bishops.

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Faith leaders ranging from evangelical to Jewish came together Wednesday to launch a nationwide mobilization of people of faith to call for immigration reform that does not tear families apart. Already the “Together, Not Torn: Families Can’t Wait for Immigration Reform” campaign has collected over 100,000 pro-reform postcards that will be delivered to members of Congress next week. Organizers anticipate they will collect more than a million postcards within the next month.

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Last month, a week before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars.

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The Catholic Church has a positive vision of human life, marriage and family which must not be presented as a list of things the church opposes, Pope Benedict XVI told the bishops of Scotland.

The Church’s “positive and inspiring vision of human life, the beauty of marriage and the joy of parenthood” are “rooted in God’s infinite, transforming and ennobling love for all of us, which opens our eyes to recognize and love his image in our neighbor,” the pope said.

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