The Rev. Traci West is professor of ethics and African-American studies at Drew University in Madison, N.J. Among her specialties are welfare policy and justice issues in church and society. She wrote the entry “Agenda for the Churches: Uprooting a National Policy of Morally Stigmatizing Poor Single Black Moms” for the book Welfare Policy: (Feminist Critiques).

The Rev. Thomas J. Massaro is dean of the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. He wrote the book Catholic Social Teaching and United States Welfare Reform. He also co-wrote the article “Compassion in Action: A Letter to President Bush on Social Policy” for the journal America (2001).

Read a statement from the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch saying the budget worried Ryan’s former parish priest.

Watch a commentary from Word on Fire comparing Ryan’s budget with Catholic social teaching.

Rabbi Deborah Brin and the Nahalat Shalom Jewish community are involved in peace and reconciliation work in Albuquerque, N.M.

Rabbi James L. Mirel is chair of the Washington Coalition of Rabbis. He co-authored, with local Muslim and Christian leaders, a Seattle Times column urging moderate Jews, Christians and Muslims to persuade the American government to engage actively in pursuing peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He is rabbi of Temple B’nai Torah (Reform) in Bellevue, Wash.

Rabbi Herbert Bronstein is senior scholar at North Shore Congregation Israel, a metropolitan Chicago congregation where he was senior rabbi for some 25 years. He teaches at the religion department at Lake Forest College, is nationally active in the interfaith community and formerly served on the board of the Council for a Parliament of the […]

John S. Friedman is rabbi of the Judea Reform Congregation in Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C. He has received awards for his activism in peace and social justice causes. He has been president of Durham Congregations in Action and the Mid-Atlantic Association of Reform Rabbis and has chaired the Interreligious Affairs Committee of the Central Conference of […]

Rabbi Gerry Serotta is a former chair of Rabbis for Human Rights – North America and works as the executive director of Clergy Beyond Borders.