Alejandro Aguilera, Assistant Director, USCCB Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs, is co-author of the series Prophets of Hope, St. Mary’s Press, and contributing editor of Liturgia y Canción, Oregon Catholic Press. He is a board member of the National Catholic Network for Hispanic Youth and Young Adult Ministry, the National Association of Catechists Working with Hispanics, and the […]

The Rev. Stephen Sundborg is president of Seattle University. He was in Vatican City 25 years ago and witnessed the announcement of the new pope at his first appearance.

Sally Vance-Trembath is a lecturer at Santa Clara University. Her areas of expertise include the pope and the Catholic Church today.

The Rev. Thomas P. Rausch is a professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A Catholic priest, Rausch is the author of Authority and Leadership in the Church: Past Directions and Future Possibilities.

Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School in New York.  He wrote the book Separation of Church and State (2002).

Melissa Rogers is a nonresident senior fellow in governance studies for Brookings, where she specializes in the First Amendment’s religion clauses and religion and faith-related political issues. She previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Barry Lynn is executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a lobbying group based in Washington, D.C.

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.

Religioustolerance.com offers a snapshot of the court decisions involving Good Friday holidays.