Scott Hahn chair of Biblical Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio, and the founder and director of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. A former Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism, his books include Hail, Holy Queen: The Mother of God in the Word of God (Doubleday, 2001), which examines the Marian doctrines and the […]

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.

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

Read an essay by Karen Maudlin, a psychologist specializing in family therapy, on how to talk to children of different ages about Jesus’ crucifixion.

Read the results of a 15-year longitudinal study released in March 2003 by University of Michigan researchers who found that children’s viewing of violent television shows, their identification with aggressive characters and their perception that TV violence is realistic were linked to later aggression as young adults.