Catholic groups, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan's archdiocese of New York, filed lawsuits in federal courts on May 21 to stop the Obama administration from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives in their health plans.

The Supreme Court will rule on sentencing juveniles convicted of murder to life with no parole. Justice Scalia told the Court “the American people…have decided that’s the rule.” But Justice Ginsburg suggested such sentencing makes a juvenile “a throw-away person.”

In the wake of White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan’s speech on drone ethics and targeted killing, we talk to Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter, author of The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama.

In this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world’s most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims.

Is the federal government more than “one word for things we do together”? Should government say "you're on your own"? A politician and a priest speak about Catholic social teaching, the budget, and government's role in our lives.

“I think you could compare it to a hostile takeover,” says reporter, author, and Vatican observer David Gibson. Might the Leadership Conference of Women Religious simply disband and reorganize on its own?

"We've come a long way as a nation where there's a racial issue, but we still have a long, long, long way to go," says Rev. Fred Luter Jr., who is expected to become the first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"People across the political spectrum, right to left, are beginning to wonder if we are committed to a mission whose success is dubious now at best because of the way we’ve defined it," says William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Does the US have a duty to act in Syria? Is it possible to somehow intervene and still do more good than harm? "Nothing is certain in human affairs," says this political and moral philosopher.

"Rick Santorum is a very particular kind of Catholic...A lot of Catholics don’t see themselves in him, and a lot of people actually don’t even know that he’s Catholic. Most people assume he’s an evangelical," says Religion News Service editor in chief Kevin Eckstrom.