On March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected by the College of Cardinals to succeed Jozef Ratzinger as pope.

When I was a teenager, my father belonged to Philadelphia’s Union League.

I come from a long line of anti-fascists.

The last time that I wrote anything about the Proud Boys, I got into some hot water.

Sometimes when I write about my father’s civil rights work in Mississippi, I get emails telling me that I should be proud of his fight against racism at a time when it was neither easy nor accepted, particularly in a young white man.

I hate to be cliche, but I’m going to tell you a proverb you’ve probably already heard a hundred or so times.

Conservatives are often hesitant to criticize other conservatives.

Every year, during the last few days of June, I sit at my computer and wait impatiently for the most important Supreme Court decisions to be announced.

Democrats in Philadelphia just came through a bruising mayoral primary, which is basically the city’s general election.

I just donated to the March of Dimes, the iconic initiative aimed at promoting the health of children and pregnant, women at a time many women are fighting for the right not to be pregnant.

When an entire kindergarten class was murdered by Adam Lanza two weeks before Christmas in 2012, I was paralyzed with grief.

My father did not have a happy childhood. I’ll spare you the details, but ...

A few years ago, after I’d written a series of columns about how the Catholic church had borne a disproportionate share of criticism regarding the sex abuse scandal, a number of readers responded with such negativity that they all but confirmed the anti-Catholic bias.

I’m sure that regular readers of this column think all I ever talk about, write about, ruminate on and care about is abortion.

As a child, lying was something I rarely did. This was a function of two things: being Catholic and being lazy.

Christmas is my favorite holiday. Nothing else even comes close.

I turned 61 last week. I don’t plan on joining the celestial choir any time soon, but birthdays make me think of the opposite end of the life cycle.

In the smoldering wake of what can only be called a Republican debacle, many pundits much better schooled in politics and history weighed in with their opinions on what happened.

This is addressed to the people who remain in a state of shock after Pennsylvania voters chose John Fetterman to represent them in the U.S. Senate come January.

James Carville once quipped: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Every one of us has the right to defend our reputations against attack. Over the past few years, I’ve seen reputations destroyed by people with agendas.

I expected the Irish schadendfruede. Although I generally identify as Italian, my father had red hair, freckles and some relatives in County Somewhere.

I was watching an old documentary the other day about classic Hollywood stars.

I write this sitting at a cafe in front of the Italian Parliament, waiting for the president to resign.

During the Bicentennial year of 1976, I was a 15-year-old history geek. To be alive for the 200th birthday of our nation, particularly in Philadelphia, where it all began, was intoxicating.

They’re fire-bombing pro-life pregnancy clinics. They’re defacing churches....

For years, social interactions between men and women have become fractured, where the wrong word or glance could end your life as you know it.

The shooter in Buffalo had a racist motive. He wanted to kill Black people. We don’t know exactly how he developed his hatred, but we know that it was the motivating factor in his rampage because it’s confirmed by his own words.

Cats are said to have nine lives. Rasputin was said to have almost as many. If only the #MeToo movement had the same brief lifespan.

Unlike so many people with Twitter and Facebook accounts these days, I am not a constitutional scholar. I did go to law school, passed the Bar on my first try and have been practicing law since 1987.

Recently, a friend showed me a sobering graphic depicting the gender disparity in suicide rates between men and women. While females tend to attempt suicide more often than men (and experience suicidal thoughts more frequently), males are more “successful” in completing the act.

Years ago, when I was just beginning to practice immigration law, I remember hearing about two horrific genocides.

I’m going to out myself here: I am a Bad Masker.

When it became obvious that the Titanic was not going to survive its tragic collision with the iceberg in the North Atlantic, those in positions of authority started to do the human triage necessary in emergencies

I regularly deal with women who’ve been sexually abused in other countries. Many of them do not report the assaults to law enforcement, because in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the police are unlikely to take rape and harassment seriously.

Lately, I’ve started seeing all the usual Christmas decorations, books, gift suggestions, articles, foods and complaints about all the usual Christmas decorations, books, gift suggestions, articles, and foods.

Ahmaud Arbery is not here, but he heard the verdicts. He knows, in that place where his restless soul resides, that his death has been avenged.

If Kyle Rittenhouse is convicted of anything other than, at most, a misdemeanor offense, I will write glowing articles about Nancy Pelosi, make Christine Blasey Ford my social media profile photo, and contribute to NARAL. ...

I was watching TV the other night, and one of those ubiquitous campaign ads popped up. This time, it was a female candidate for the Supreme Court, discussing all of her accomplishments.

I recently filling in hosting a local talk show, which gave me the opportunity to interview Lt. Colonel Jonathan P. Meyers, a retired Marine who’d recently written a memoir about his almost three decades in service: “American to the Corps.”

I’ve been practicing immigration law for over 25 years, and I speak four languages fluently. I’ve traveled widely outside of the United States, and lived abroad for large stretches in the 1980s and ‘90s.

I was down the shore this weekend, enjoying the sea, the sun and the sweeping panorama of people without masks. Honestly, that was even more beautiful than the sunset over the Atlantic.

One of the first cases I studied at Villanova was Tinker v. Des Moines, a seminal case in free speech and student’s rights.

Mark Ruffalo came out on Twitter the other day and angered a lot of people, but not the people he usually tends to anger.

The first person I thought when I heard that Prince Philip had died was Elizabeth, a Queen in the greater world but only and always a wife to the man who’d been by her side for longer than I’ve been alive.

I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like their colors, ma’am

My father had terminal lung cancer. He fought like a Spartan at Thermopylae, his body riddled with chemo and radiation, his stomach filled with macrobiotic foods lovingly prepared by my mother, his mind steeped in the defiance of death as exhibited by Dylan Thomas who wrote the words that were buried with him, in his coffin:

The reason for schools being shut down across the country is the reason every local, regional and national official has used over the past eight or so months: COVID, corona, Wuhan, call it whatever you want.