Read the opinion of Annie L. Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, to remove Christmas as a federally recognized holiday and replace it with a more secular holiday.

Read a Dec. 21, 2000, Associated Press story posted by the Cincinnati Enquirer about a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that Christmas can continue to be a legal holiday, as it has been since 1870, because it has a secular purpose.

Read a Feb. 17, 2013, New York Times article about the debate over religious federal holidays in the U.S.

A segment on the web site About.com looks at the legal questions surrounding making Good Friday a state holiday.

Read about the decline of Hispanic-Catholic community that was once booming in this Feb. 26, 2013 Public Religion Research Institute article.

Read a New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the history of the Way – or Stations – of the Cross.

Esdras Betancourt is director of the Hispanic Ministries department of the Church of God, in Cleveland, Tenn.

Gerald R. Barnes is executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs, whose mission is to assist the Catholic Church in its efforts to serve the large Hispanic population in the United States.

Read an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story from April 2, 2004 about Archbishop John F. Donoghue order of priests from that archdiocese to not wash women’s feet.