The Blog

To The Contrary Executive Producer Cari Stein met with environmental activists Maria Gunnoe and Larry Gibson, Jr. to discuss the issue of mountaintop removal mining. Here they are pictured about to board a plane in West Virginia to survey mountains that have been subjected to this procedure. This form of coal mining is highly controversial for its environmental impact. Learn more on an upcoming episode of To The Contrary! Stay tuned!

This week on To The Contrary, our panelists discuss New York's new anti-trafficking policy; the GOP, the government shutdown, and women; and Debora Spar's book Wonder Women.

This week on To The Contrary, our panelists discuss the Catholic Church's role in society, a former nun who says the Church should reconsider celibacy, and the gap between men and women when it comes to political donations.

By Bonnie Erbé

Is Pope Francis sitting astride an invisible seesaw? Why else would he on one day speak out as one of the great religious reformers of all time, and on the next, shrivel to the level of his most recent predecessors-- who kept the church cloaked in the darkness and atavism of its ancient past?