Mario Beauregard, University of Montreal neuroscientist, has studied when religious feelings are experienced by using sophisticated brain scans to see inside the brains of Carmelite nuns as they recall a spiritual experience.

Andrew Newberg, director of research at the Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Medical College, is a co-author of Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief (Random House, 2002). Newberg and his colleagues used high-tech imaging techniques to examine the brains of meditating Buddhists and Franciscan […]

John G. West Jr. is a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. He co-edited the book The Theology of Welfare (University Press of America, 2000).

Royal W.F. Rhodes is professor of religious studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He co-wrote the book Eclipse of Justice: Ethics, Economics, and the Lost Traditions of American Catholicism (Orbis Books, 1992).

David Sikkink is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He wrote the article “Who Gives to the Poor? The Role of Religious Tradition and Political Location on the Personal Generosity of Americans Toward the Poor” for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1998).

Marshall J. Breger is a law professor at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on public policy from a Jewish perspective. He edited the book Public Policy and Social Issues: Jewish Sources and Perspectives (Praeger, 2003).

Mary Hobgood is an associate professor of religious studies at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass. She wrote the books Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Theory: Paradigms in Conflict (Temple University Press, l991) and Dismantling Privilege: An Ethics of Accountability (Pilgrim Press, 2000).

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.