Minutes ago in Norfolk, Virginia, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was introduced as Mitt Romney’s running mate. It turns out all that talk about Romney being risk averse was a bigger head fake that those bogus rumors of considering Condi Rice. There are five reasons why Mitt Romney’s bold pick of Paul Ryan is great for America. 1. Picking a Catholic running mate means that the Vice Presidenti... More

Here. Please let me know what you think. And here is a quote from Cardinal Wuerl, from his book, Seek First the Kingdom, that in part speaks to the spirit in which that column was written: we need to examine how we talk, because we ourselves are media. As ambassadors of God’s kingdom, we need — with every word and gesture — to live out our commitment. We need to be a people of... More

Stephen White is a fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center — and a blogger here at CatholicVote. He was invited to a discussion on the Ryan budget by — of all places — Al Jazeera. They also noted a recent campaign started by American sisters called Nuns on a Bus who are travelling across the country to oppose Paul Ryan’s budget. Host ... More

This past week, the U.S. Bishops gathered in Atlanta, with one objective being the drafting of a statement on the state of the economy. As Joan Frawley Desmond of The National Catholic Register reports, one concern several bishops had was that previous statements regarding the budget proposal of House Republicans had been overly partisan and strayed too far from a teaching of general principles an... More

The news out of the USCCB meeting in Atlanta last week included a conversation amongst the bishops about reactions to Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget. It was a conversation more important than the personal figures of Ryan, Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, Michigan, or even Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, California. It was a conversation about what the Church is competent to say and do and about ... More

This urban legend has been kicking around the internet for many months and it’s shaping liberal Catholic opposition to Paul Ryan’s budget reforms. The rumor is that Paul Ryan is an “Ayn Rand devotee” as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote. Rand was an atheist author who wrote books like Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness. Father Thomas Reese has portrayed ... More

Welcome to the Lunchtime Reader, where we assemble important stories to keep your eyes on. One despicable leftist ad showed a Republican pushing a grandmother off of a cliff. Christmas comes early for Paul Ryan. Politifact calls the claim that “Republicans voted to end Medicare” as the “Lie of the Year 2011.” http://is.gd/vgJWIm GOP unhappiness with the field fuels buzz for... More

Welcome to the Lunchtime Reader, where we assemble important stories to keep your eyes on. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR Bipartisan support, finally! Rep. Paul Ryan, R-WI, teamed up with Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden on a new plan to reform Medicare. Wyden said it was time for conservatives and progressives to come together and “deal with the costs and demographic challenges.” It won’... More

The Good Samaritan: Example of Charity? Or Early Medicare Provider? In the wake of the much-ballyhooed correspondence between Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Congressional Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a group called “Catholics United” issued a press release titled, “Catholics Ask Archbishop Dolan: What Anti-Poverty Programs Would Jesus Cut?” The archbishop, if he were ... More

Prof. Dan Maguire Hollywood and the media would have you believe that Catholic bishops routinely discipline Catholic professors ‘who get out of line.’ But in fact, it is extremely rare for a bishop to discipline any dissident theologian. Yet, in 2006, Archbishop Dolan (then of Milwaukee) corrected Dan Maguire for claiming that Catholics could support abortion and marriage between coupl... More