Colman McCarthy

It's Happening: As the possibility of Trump's impeachment roils U.S. politics, allusions are made to Nixon in the 1970s. But the two presidents' similarities go well beyond impeachment questions.

It's Happening: In case you weren't keeping up with realities that matter, or were stressed dealing with ones that don't, May was National Bike Month. It's notable that we have no National SUV Month. Only bicycles get their due.

It's Happening: As heartening as Tiger Woods' recent victory was, golf itself as both a game and a business has been having moments of decline. Still, the ancient game's spiritual side endures.

It's Happening: In light of the recent college admissions scam and suits, I asked my students. What they wrote was heartfelt, honest and, in some cases, alarming in how deep was their anguish.

It's Happening: If Michelle Obama had had a moment or two of speaking truth to power, and dared deliver a few syllables of "input" on restraining her husband's hawkish ways, would it have made a difference?

It's Happening: U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Joseph McCarthy lend shadows to my surname, but there are other people who live up to the Gaelic lineage and meaning of the name, "son of the loving."

It's Happening: My hope for the 117 women who won in the midterm elections is that a few of them will take time to remember Jeannette Rankin, the pacifist and evangelist for women's rights from Missoula, Montana, and the first woman elected to Congress in 1916 at age 36. 

I had a glimpse of Thomas Merton's "open heart" when I was researching an article for NCR that would run on Dec. 13, 1967. Not long after my piece ran, Merton let his dislike be known.

More than 150 canonized women and men were vegetarians. Given that animal agriculture is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and a leading cause of deforestation, pollution and biodiversity loss, it's time to emulate them.

Tepid on capital punishment when he spoke before U.S. Congress in 2015, Francis has now separated himself from the wafflers. Will his stand against executions reach parish pulpits?

Book Review: The tough cases, the editors write, involve "the rare times in a judicial career when a judge has to wrestle with a problem so complex, or so emotionally draining, as to test the fortitude and impartiality of even the most competent and experience jurists."

While the one-percenters enjoy pristine beaches and cocktails parties, the immigrant laborers who maintain their mansions struggle to get by and live in fear of deportation.

The United States has an obligation to receive Latin American immigrants because they are fleeing violence and poverty that is the direct result of decades of U.S. interventionist policies in their homeland.

"Of the hundreds of books written about the Kennedys, none has focused on the member of the clan who made the most enduring mark," writes Eileen McNamara. "This biography is an attempt to correct that record." 

Book Review: To make it plain where his sympathies lay, U.S. District Judge Miles Lord spoke of the "powerful pressure upon a judge in my position to go along with the theory that there is something sacred about a bomb and that those who do raise their voices or hands against it should be struck down as enemies of the people."

When asked who is my favorite conservative Republican, one A-lister speedily comes to mind. He is a devout believer in the gospel of capitalism and the Gospel of Jesus.

Witnessing and being heartened by this spring's citizen activism — March for Our Lives, Never Again walkouts, police brutality protests — I'm hard put to think of anyone more pleased than Sam Daley-Harris.

Whatever positives these tiny-touch screens may have brought to their users in the past two decades, the negatives are mounting.

I asked my students to reflect on the country's gun mania. Their answers spoke volumes about the anxieties of their daily lives.

In light of accolades for the movie "The Post," as with all corporations, and each of us as individuals, it's important to remember that The Washington Post itself was and is a mix of favorables and failings. I worked for the paper  from 1969 to 1997.