Brendan Freeman is a Cistercian monk and abbot of New Melleray Abbey, a community of about 30 monks in Peosta, Iowa. The monks hand-make wooden caskets and urns that they bill as a “soulful alternative” to more elaborate caskets.

Michael J. Naughton teaches courses on faith and work in the Catholic studies department at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He also directs the university’s Center for Catholic Studies. Naughton has written numerous books and articles on business culture, vocation and Christian social principles.

Read a Nov. 8, 2012, article from the American Spectator about how Catholic and evangelical voters supported the Republican candidate in the 2012 election.

Thomas C. Berg is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. He is a leading expert on church-state issues and has written on religious land use questions. He supports the rights of religious organizations to choose members based on religion and sexual conduct. He has also written about religious speech in the workplace.

Robert A. Destro is a law professor and founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. He is an expert in freedom of religion, constitutional law (separation of powers), international human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, bioethics, marriage law and civil rights.  […]

Read a Jan. 21, 2011, Religion News Service article about how cash-strapped municipalities seek to tax religious groups for road use.

A Christian perspective on narrative myths by Roberto Rivera, a former fellow at the Wilberforce Forum at Prison Fellowship.

A 2003 Vatican report on “the complex phenomenon of ‘New Age,’” which is influencing many aspects of contemporary culture.

Richard R. Gaillardetz is the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College. He is also the author of By What Authority? A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful (Liturgical Press, 2003).