It's hard to watch the mayhem in Gaza, watch the bloodied faces of children and anguished parents, hard even to watch the death mask of even the most ardent, Israel-hating member of Hamas as he is carted off to his grave, easier to turn it off, and not think about this complex, seemingly intractable mess that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The New York Times began a series Sunday on foreign-born priests working in the United States. U.S. Catholic, of course, beat them to the punch, with our own feature that will appear in the February issue, sent to the printer two weeks ago. Our story, I'm happy to brag, does a better job of putting the issue in the context of the U.S.

The $50 billion Ponzi scheme engineered by financier Bernard Madoff is now affecting Catholic schoolchildren in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the Associated Press. The Diocese of St. Thomas there lost $2 million in the scheme, which has hampered the diocese's ability to offer financial aid to low-income students.St.

If, like me, you have waited until the last few days before Christmas to find that special something for loved ones, I have some kindly intended advice: fogettaboutit.It's long past shipping deadlines and most of the department stores have probably been completely picked over. It's just too late (and I am talking mostly to you men planning to run off on Christmas Eve).

It's hard to read the info in the last post, and not have an opinion, especially as a blogger.

Pope Benedict XVI has spawned another media tempest related to homosexuality; or at least he threw a bone to a hungry media, who then spawned the tempest.

It's that "top 10" time of year, a brief temporal news hole filled with over-the-top-10 copy attempting to capture the top something or other of the departing annum. In between perusing top 10 embarrassing celebity or presidential moments (I'm the shoe dodger!"), don't miss a more sobering list, The top 10 stories you missed in 2008, offered by Foreign Policy .