LaVonne Neff > LIVELY DUST

Vice-President Aaron Burr spoils his political career by killing former treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton. Yesterday during the Pra...

Before beginning the next paragraph, please click here and listen to Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy performing "Only the Lord Knows....

In 1960 when John F. Kennedy became the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, a lot of people panicked. The ironicall...

New York's Cardinal Dolan may have tried to offend everybody in just eight days, though the Republicans seem not to have noticed his ble...

Catherine of Siena explains to Gregory XI why he should move to Rome The Vatican has always been scared of forceful nuns. Even (and pe...

The bishops have spoken, or at least succumbed. This weekend American Catholics began saying new words at mass. Well, perhaps new  is inco...

As soon as I read Jana Riess's beliefnet interview with Donna Freitas , I put a hold on both young-adult novels at the public library. T...

Gay marriage is now legal in the nation's capital, and today Washington's first same-sex weddings took place. When it became obviou...

Fans of C.J. Sansom's Tudor-era detective Matthew Shardlake may appreciate this 20th-century Spanish interlude, written between Sovere...

OK, pro-choice people, get a grip. Yes, the House passed a health-care bill that clearly excludes abortion from public funding . Yes, a spok...

If you have any interest in the Episcopal Church, you've already been exposed to far too many summaries, comments, analyses, predictions...

Liberal means favoring freedom. In 17th and early 18th-century Europe, liberals brought down the Ancien Régime—a totalitarian alliance of c...

I am distressed by the Pew survey showing that of all religious groups, white evangelicals are most likely to approve of torture and white ...

Yesterday the FDA approved Plan B —the morning-after pill—for over-the-counter sales to 17-year-olds (though not until certain labeling chan...

Here is what the Neffs ate tonight. The bottom layer, which does not show, is a homemade corn tortilla. Next comes a handful of wild arugul...

Today, the fourth Sunday in Lent, is Laetare Sunday in the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, though probably not many of us notice. (...

This morning I finished reading Dissolution, and author C.J. Sansom is now high in my pantheon of mystery writers. You suspect a book is go...

Tomorrow we are going to a St. Patrick's Day dinner of French and Italian food. This makes perfect sense: tradition has it that the sai...

I think I know what happened behind the scenes in Doubt. I know, I know. It's not supposed to matter: this is a film about doubt , for P...

The good news: I'm old enough now that not even the Catholic church requires me to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (scroll to Cano...