Michele Desmarais is the associate editor of the Journal of Religion and Film and an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. She specializes in Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

Read a March 24, 2006, Commonweal article by John J. DiIulio who is a former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and now teaches in the political science department at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served on the domestic policy steering committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Rev. Richard A. Blake, a professor of film studies at Boston College, is a film historian and author of Afterimage: The Indelible Catholic Imagination of Six American Filmmakers. He reviews films for America magazine.

Read “States probe limits of abortion policy,” a June 22, 2006, analysis of the South Dakota law and other developments from Stateline.org.

Norton Rodriguez is the writer behind ChristianFilmmaker.com, an online ministry to filmmakers and other film professionals.

See a chart of 2004 exit polls at the CNN web site that shows the Catholic vote results for each candidate and can be broken down by state.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington conducts an annual poll of U.S. Catholics that includes questions on politics. CARA analysts examined the 2004 Catholic vote in this PDF file. An April 2004 analysis showed that 30.5 percent of Catholics said they usually think of themselves as Republicans, 38.5 percent as Democrats and 21.8 percent […]

Ron Reed is an actor, playwright and author of a book titled 1000 Soul Food Movies: A Guide to Films with a Spiritual Flavour. He has written about the movies at Christianity Today, Arts & Faith and at his blog, soulfoodmovies.

An August 2005 Pew Forum poll examines the attitudes of various religious groups, including Catholics, toward politics and salient issues.