Faith in Politics

In the late 1990s, reading Maggie’s American Dream is an exercise akin to taking a social Rorschach test, with the results revealing readers’ views on a whole range of issues […]

Boston Catholics: A History of the Church and Its People By Thomas H. O’Connor Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1998, 357 pages. Does religion constitute an important public resource? Are churches […]

“It’s 1834 in the town of Sturbridge,” announces moderator Jim O’Brien from the podium at the front of the Center Meeting House. Actually, it’s a cool October night in 1998 […]

When he was 22 years old, John D. Walsh Jr., a genial collector of insurance premiums, was elected town moderator in Pembroke. Since then, at every town meeting for the […]

Faith and politics mix in fascinating and sometimes fruitful ways. People of religious faith can bring moral uplift into the sometimes tawdry world of politics, and people of political faith […]

Every time the debate over public financing of private and religious schools heats up in Massachusetts, we hear the same legal arguments from each side of the debate: Funding advocates […]

No pollster on the Massachusetts scene today has the ability to get under the skin of the state’s electorate in the way Edwin “Slim” DiNuccio does. Part seer, part savant, […]

With the publication of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence last year, MIT professor Pauline Maier established herself not just as one of the nation’s leading scholars in the […]

I have been a strong supporter of certification tests for teaching candidates, and continue to be. So, many people were curious about why I rejected Governor Cellucci’s plan to test […]

Imagine the following: The Commissioner of Public Health issues a report that a substantial minority of pediatricians are deficient in their understanding of basic anatomy and childhood illnesses. While many […]

As the high cost of housing started to squeeze families out of desirable suburbs 30 years ago, the state responded with a landmark law that became known by a pointed […]

It’s a fundamental question, whether the subject is welfare reform, affordable housing, or the minimum wage, but it rarely gets answered to anyone’s satisfaction: How much money does a family […]

The general public may not have noticed it in the rush of roll calls that marked the end of the legislative session in July, but advocates for the needy sure […]

Here is a case of journalistic fraud. Some may consider it a minor case. It involves highly questionable practices in the coverage of election-year politics, but it was hardly remarked […]

“I love showing people what we’ve done,” announces our fast-moving, fast-talking tour guide, Jeanne DuBois, director of the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, “because it’s really exciting.” A 52-year-old soccer […]

Over the Bourne Bridge and down Route 151 a few miles, then a stone’s throw from a weathered wood sign bearing the legend “Land of the Wampanoag,” is the stylish […]

Two years ago, Johnny Ramirez and his family seemed unlikely candidates to become homeowners in a west-of-Boston suburb. They had come to Framingham from the Dominican Republic seven years earlier, […]

Get a glimpse from the driveway, and you’ll think Tom and Lisa Ragan have it made in Marlborough. They live with their three children in a sprawling clapboard house surrounded […]

Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of SprawlBy Richard Moe and Carter WilkieHenry Holt, New York, 1998, 276 pages.Home From Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st CenturyBy […]

On a sticky summer afternoon, Easthampton is quiet, the traffic fluid, and the trees heavy with lush green foliage. Two years earlier the town looked notably different. In the spring […]

The nation is in the midst of a home-buying boom, pushing homeownership rates across the country to record highs. After a small decline in the mid- to late-1980s, the percentage […]

Rep. Daniel Bosley, a Democrat from North Adams who is known around the State House as a master of public policy, has a complaint: “No one covers all the serious […]