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Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Trump's West Point speech brought partisanship to the home of the US military − 3 essential reads
President Donald Trump's speech at the graduation of the class of 2025 from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point included segments that were clearly scripted and portions that were obviously not. During the unscripted portions, Trump, who wore a bright red 'Make America Great Again' campaign hat during his entire appearance on May 24, 2025, delivered remarks that hit many of his frequent partisan political talking points. That included attacking presidential predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden, describing immigrants to the U.S. as 'criminals' and trumpeting other policy accomplishments in his first and second terms. That level of partisanship in a military setting – on the campus of the nation's first military academy, and before an audience of cadets and their families, many of whom are veterans – is unusual in the United States. The Conversation U.S. has published several articles discussing the importance to democracy of keeping the military and partisan politics separate. Here are three highlights from that coverage. During the West Point ceremony, the graduates themselves took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' And all of them had studied the significance of that oath, including in classes like those taught by Joseph G. Amoroso and Lee Robinson, active-duty Army officers who graduated from West Point and later served as professors there. As Amoroso and Robinson wrote, those classes teach cadets that, like all military personnel, they serve the Constitution and the American people, not a particular person or political party: '(O)ur oath forms the basis of a nonpartisan ethic. In the U.S., unlike in many other countries, the oath implies military leaders should be trusted for their expertise and judgment, not for their loyalty to an individual or political party. We emphasize to cadets the rules and professional expectations associated with this profound responsibility.' Read more: Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Samuel C. Mahaney, who teaches history, national security and constitutional law at Missouri University of Science and Technology, observed: '(S)ince the days of George Washington, the military has been dedicated to serving the nation, not a specific person or political agenda. … (N)onpartisanship is central to the military's primary mission of defending the country.' Mahaney wrote that if Trump's actions during his second term meant a change from the centuries of precedent, 'military personnel at all levels would face a crucial question: Would they stand up for the military's independent role in maintaining the integrity and stability of American democracy or follow the president's orders – even if those orders crossed a line that made them illegal or unconstitutional?' Read more: Marcus Hedahl and Bradley Jay Strawser, professors of philosophy who teach military ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, respectively, explain the reason for this long-standing focus on keeping politicians and politics separate from military action. 'To minimize the chance of the kind of military occupation they suffered during the Revolutionary War, the country's founders wrote the Constitution requiring that the president, an elected civilian, would be the commander in chief of the military. In the wake of World War II, Congress went even further, restructuring the military and requiring that the secretary of defense be a civilian as well.' As they observed, '… the framers always intended it to be the people's military – not the president's.' Read more: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation's archives.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
MAHA report on children's health highlights harms of ultraprocessed foods – a food scientist explains the research
On May 22, 2025, the White House released a new report highlighting what it claims are the causes of chronic disease in children. The report fleshes out many of the themes that have emerged as priorities for the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. One major area of focus is the negative health effects of ultraprocessed foods. The report points to the prevalence of ultraprocessed foods in the American diet as a key contributor to chronic illness in children and cites research that finds that nearly 70% of children's diets and 50% of pregnant and postpartum women's diets in the U.S. consist of ultraprocessed foods. The Conversation U.S. asked Paul Dawson, a food scientist at Clemson University, to explain how the government's stance on the harms of ultraprocessed foods squares with the science. Concerns that ingredients used by food manufacturers can contribute to chronic illness first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, when research began linking processed food consumption to increasing rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The term 'ultraprocessed food' dates back to the 1980s and was used to describe convenience foods and snacks that contained high amounts of additives and had low nutritional value. As research on the health effects of ultraprocessed foods began to build, experts in public health and the food industry have debated the meaning of the term. Increasingly, researchers are settling on defining ultraprocessed foods based on a framework called the Nova Food Classification System, created in 2009 by nutrition researchers in Brazil. The framework assigns foods to one of four groups based on the level of processing they undergo: Group 1 - Unprocessed or minimally processed foods: This category includes raw fruits, vegetables and meats that may be cleaned, frozen or fermented but remain close to their natural state. Group 2 - Processed culinary ingredients: Think salt, sugar, oils and other ingredients extracted from nature and used to cook and flavor foods. Group 3 - Processed foods: Foods in this category are made by adding ingredients like salt or sugar to Group 1 items — for example, canned vegetables or cheese. Group 4 - Ultraprocessed foods: These are mostly foods that contain ingredients not found in a typical kitchen, such as hydrogenated oils, modified starches, flavor enhancers, color additives and preservatives. Examples include chips, sodas, candy bars and many frozen meals, which are designed to be hyper-palatable and often nutrient-poor. A growing body of research links ultraprocessed foods with many negative health outcomes, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and cognitive decline. One issue is that these products are typically high in added sugar, sodium, saturated fats and chemical additives, and low in fiber, vitamins and essential micronutrients. But some studies also suggest that what makes these foods harmful isn't just the ingredients but also how they're made. That's because the industrial processing of fats and starches can produce harmful compounds. For example, a substance called acrolein, formed when oils are heated at high temperatures, has been linked to DNA damage. Studies are also finding that microparticles from packaging and plastics, now found in air, water and food, may disrupt the gut microbiome, a key player in immune and metabolic health. One drawback of nutrition studies is that they often rely on self-reported dietary data, which can be inaccurate. They can also have confounding factors that are difficult to account for, such as lifestyle patterns. However, the consistency of the findings across diverse populations gives credence to the growing concerns about ultraprocessed foods. An important caveat, however, is that not all ultraprocessed foods are created equal. They vary in how nutritious they are, and some ultraprocessed foods play an important role for vulnerable populations. For example, foods containing the slow-release carbohydrate sweetener sucromalt help people with diabetes prevent blood sugar spikes, and hypoallergenic infant formula can be lifesaving for infants that cannot digest milk at a young age. The report echoes key themes of the 2020–2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a document jointly published by the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services every five years. Both the MAHA report and the federal guidelines encourage the consumption of nutrient-dense, whole foods. One critical difference between them is that the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines make no mention of ultraprocessed foods. Some public health experts have noted that this omission may reflect food industry influence. Kennedy has stated that a follow-up report outlining a strategy and potential policy reforms for addressing childhood chronic illness will be released in mid-August 2025. However, change is unlikely to be straightforward. Ultraprocessed foods represent a significant industry, and policies that challenge their prominence may encounter resistance from influential commercial interests. For decades, U.S. agricultural subsidies, food policy and consumers have supported the mass production and consumption of ultraprocessed foods. Reversing their overconsumption will require structural shifts in how food is produced, distributed and consumed in the U.S. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Paul Dawson, Clemson University Read more: Ultraprocessed foods – like cookies, chips, frozen meals and fast food – may contribute to cognitive decline Foods high in added fats and refined carbs are like cigarettes – addictive and unhealthy Nutrition Facts labels have a complicated legacy – a historian explains the science and politics of translating food into information Paul Dawson receives funding from the USDA.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Golden Dome: Everything to know about Trump's $25 billion missile defense plan
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. President Donald Trump announced a plan to build a missile defense system, called the Golden Dome, on May 20, 2025. The system is intended to protect the United States from ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, and missiles launched from space. Trump is calling for the current budget to allocate US$25 billion to launch the initiative, which the government projected will cost $175 billion. He said Golden Dome will be fully operational before the end of his term in three years and will provide close to 100% protection. The Conversation U.S. asked Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer and director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado Boulder, about the Golden Dome plan and the feasibility of Trump's claims. Boyd receives funding for research unrelated to Golden Dome from defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Several countries, including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, have been developing missiles over the past few years that challenge the United States' current missile defense systems. These weapons include updated ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, and new hypersonic missiles. They have been specifically developed to counter America's highly advanced missile defense systems such as the Patriot and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. For example, the new hypersonic missiles are very high speed, operate in a region of the atmosphere where nothing else flies and are maneuverable. All of these aspects combined create a new challenge that requires a new, updated defensive approach. Russia has fired hypersonic missiles against Ukraine in the ongoing conflict. China parades its new hypersonic missiles in Tiananmen Square. So it's reasonable to think that, to ensure the protection of its homeland and to aid its allies, the U.S. may need a new missile defense capability. Related: How do intercontinental ballistic missiles work? Such a defense system requires a global array of geographically distributed sensors that cover all phases of all missile trajectories. First, it is essential for the system to detect the missile threats as early as possible after launch, so some of the sensors must be located close to regions where adversaries may fire them, such as by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Then, it has to track the missiles along their trajectories as they travel hundreds or thousands of miles. These requirements are met by deploying a variety of sensors on a number of different platforms on the ground, at sea, in the air and in space. Interceptors are placed in locations that protect vital U.S. assets and usually aim to engage threats during the middle portion of the trajectory between launch and the terminal dive. The U.S. already has a broad array of sensors and interceptors in place around the world and in space primarily to protect the U.S. and its allies from ballistic missiles. The sensors would need to be expanded, including with more space-based sensors, to detect new missiles such as hypersonic missiles. The interceptors would need to be enhanced to enable them to address hypersonic weapons and other missiles and warheads that can maneuver. Intercepting hypersonic missiles specifically involves several steps. First, as explained above, a hostile missile must be detected and identified as a threat. Second, the threat must be tracked along all of its trajectory due to the ability of hypersonic missiles to maneuver. Third, an interceptor missile must be able to follow the threat and get close enough to it to disable or destroy it. The main new challenge here is the ability to track the hypersonic missile continuously. This requires new types of sensors to detect hypersonic vehicles and new sensor platforms that are able to provide a complete picture of the hypersonic trajectory. As described, Golden Dome would use the sensors in a layered approach in which they are installed on a variety of platforms in multiple domains, including ground, sea, air and space. These various platforms would need to have different types of sensors that are specifically designed to track hypersonic threats in different phases of their flight paths. These defensive systems will also be designed to address weapons fired from space. Much of the infrastructure will be multipurpose and able to defend against a variety of missile types. In terms of time frame for deployment, it is important to note that Golden Dome will build from the long legacy of existing U.S. missile defense systems. Another important aspect of Golden Dome is that some of the new capabilities have been under active development for years. In some ways, Golden Dome represents the commitment to actually deploy systems for which considerable progress has already been made. Israel's Iron Dome air defense system has been described as the most effective system of its kind anywhere in the world. But even Iron Dome is not 100% effective, and it has also been overwhelmed on occasion by Hamas and others who fire very large numbers of inexpensive missiles and rockets at it. So it is unlikely that any missile defense system will ever provide 100% protection. The more important goal here is to achieve deterrence, similar to the stalemate in the Cold War with the Soviet Union that was based on nuclear weapons. All of the new weapons that Golden Dome will defend against are very expensive. The U.S. is trying to change the calculus in an opponent's thinking to the point where they will consider it not worth shooting their precious high-value missiles at the U.S. when they know there is a high probability of them not reaching their targets. That seems to me like a very aggressive timeline, but with multiple countries now operating hypersonic missiles, there is a real sense of urgency. Existing missile defense systems on the ground, at sea and in the air can be expanded to include new, more capable sensors. Satellite systems are beginning to be put in place for the space layer. Sensors have been developed to track the new missile threats. Putting all of this highly complex system together, however, is likely to take more than three years. At the same time, if the U.S. fully commits to Golden Dome, a significant amount of progress can be made in this time. President Trump is requesting a total budget for all defense spending of about $1 trillion in 2026. So, $25 billion to launch Golden Dome would represent only 2.5% of the total requested defense budget. Of course, that is still a lot of money, and a lot of other programs will need to be terminated to make it possible. But it is certainly financially achievable. RELATED STORIES —North Korea launches intercontinental ballistic missile to space, reaches record altitude —Stealth destroyer 1st to carry hypersonic missiles that travel 5 times the speed of sound — with testing imminent —Chinese scientists reveal plans for near-invisible stealth missiles that could 'redefine modern warfare' Similar to Iron Dome, Golden Dome will consist of sensors and interceptor missiles but will be deployed over a much wider geographical region and for defense against a broader variety of threats in comparison with Iron Dome. A second-generation Golden Dome system in the future would likely use directed energy weapons such as high-energy lasers and high-power microwaves to destroy missiles. This approach would significantly increase the number of shots that defenders can take against ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles. This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Golden Dome: An aerospace engineer explains the proposed nationwide missile defense system
President Donald Trump announced a plan to build a missile defense system, called the Golden Dome, on May 20, 2025. The system is intended to protect the United States from ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, and missiles launched from space. Trump is calling for the current budget to allocate US$25 billion to launch the initiative, which the government projected will cost $175 billion. He said Golden Dome will be fully operational before the end of his term in three years and will provide close to 100% protection. The Conversation U.S. asked Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer and director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado Boulder, about the Golden Dome plan and the feasibility of Trump's claims. Boyd receives funding for research unrelated to Golden Dome from defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Several countries, including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, have been developing missiles over the past few years that challenge the United States' current missile defense systems. These weapons include updated ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, and new hypersonic missiles. They have been specifically developed to counter America's highly advanced missile defense systems such as the Patriot and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. For example, the new hypersonic missiles are very high speed, operate in a region of the atmosphere where nothing else flies and are maneuverable. All of these aspects combined create a new challenge that requires a new, updated defensive approach. Russia has fired hypersonic missiles against Ukraine in the ongoing conflict. China parades its new hypersonic missiles in Tiananmen Square. So it's reasonable to think that, to ensure the protection of its homeland and to aid its allies, the U.S. may need a new missile defense capability. Such a defense system requires a global array of geographically distributed sensors that cover all phases of all missile trajectories. First, it is essential for the system to detect the missile threats as early as possible after launch, so some of the sensors must be located close to regions where adversaries may fire them, such as by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Then, it has to track the missiles along their trajectories as they travel hundreds or thousands of miles. These requirements are met by deploying a variety of sensors on a number of different platforms on the ground, at sea, in the air and in space. Interceptors are placed in locations that protect vital U.S. assets and usually aim to engage threats during the middle portion of the trajectory between launch and the terminal dive. The U.S. already has a broad array of sensors and interceptors in place around the world and in space primarily to protect the U.S. and its allies from ballistic missiles. The sensors would need to be expanded, including with more space-based sensors, to detect new missiles such as hypersonic missiles. The interceptors would need to be enhanced to enable them to address hypersonic weapons and other missiles and warheads that can maneuver. Intercepting hypersonic missiles specifically involves several steps. First, as explained above, a hostile missile must be detected and identified as a threat. Second, the threat must be tracked along all of its trajectory due to the ability of hypersonic missiles to maneuver. Third, an interceptor missile must be able to follow the threat and get close enough to it to disable or destroy it. The main new challenge here is the ability to track the hypersonic missile continuously. This requires new types of sensors to detect hypersonic vehicles and new sensor platforms that are able to provide a complete picture of the hypersonic trajectory. As described, Golden Dome would use the sensors in a layered approach in which they are installed on a variety of platforms in multiple domains, including ground, sea, air and space. These various platforms would need to have different types of sensors that are specifically designed to track hypersonic threats in different phases of their flight paths. These defensive systems will also be designed to address weapons fired from space. Much of the infrastructure will be multipurpose and able to defend against a variety of missile types. In terms of time frame for deployment, it is important to note that Golden Dome will build from the long legacy of existing U.S. missile defense systems. Another important aspect of Golden Dome is that some of the new capabilities have been under active development for years. In some ways, Golden Dome represents the commitment to actually deploy systems for which considerable progress has already been made. Israel's Iron Dome air defense system has been described as the most effective system of its kind anywhere in the world. But even Iron Dome is not 100% effective, and it has also been overwhelmed on occasion by Hamas and others who fire very large numbers of inexpensive missiles and rockets at it. So it is unlikely that any missile defense system will ever provide 100% protection. The more important goal here is to achieve deterrence, similar to the stalemate in the Cold War with the Soviet Union that was based on nuclear weapons. All of the new weapons that Golden Dome will defend against are very expensive. The U.S. is trying to change the calculus in an opponent's thinking to the point where they will consider it not worth shooting their precious high-value missiles at the U.S. when they know there is a high probability of them not reaching their targets. That seems to me like a very aggressive timeline, but with multiple countries now operating hypersonic missiles, there is a real sense of urgency. Existing missile defense systems on the ground, at sea and in the air can be expanded to include new, more capable sensors. Satellite systems are beginning to be put in place for the space layer. Sensors have been developed to track the new missile threats. Putting all of this highly complex system together, however, is likely to take more than three years. At the same time, if the U.S. fully commits to Golden Dome, a significant amount of progress can be made in this time. President Trump is requesting a total budget for all defense spending of about $1 trillion in 2026. So, $25 billion to launch Golden Dome would represent only 2.5% of the total requested defense budget. Of course, that is still a lot of money, and a lot of other programs will need to be terminated to make it possible. But it is certainly financially achievable. Similar to Iron Dome, Golden Dome will consist of sensors and interceptor missiles but will be deployed over a much wider geographical region and for defense against a broader variety of threats in comparison with Iron Dome. A second-generation Golden Dome system in the future would likely use directed energy weapons such as high-energy lasers and high-power microwaves to destroy missiles. This approach would significantly increase the number of shots that defenders can take against ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Iain Boyd, University of Colorado Boulder Read more: China's hypersonic missiles threaten US power in the Pacific – an aerospace engineer explains how the weapons work and the unique threats they pose Israel's Iron Dome air defense system works well – here's how Hamas got around it Is Russia looking to put nukes in space? Doing so would undermine global stability and ignite an anti-satellite arms race Iain Boyd receives funding from the U.S. Department of Defense and Lockheed-Martin Corporation, a defense contractor that sells missile defense systems and could potentially benefit from the implementation of Golden Dome.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Even with Pope Leo XIV in place, US Catholics stand ‘at a crossroads'
Shortly after 6 P.M. in Rome, the longed-for sight appeared above the Sistine Chapel: white smoke. Over the course of a day and a half, the more than 130 members of the College of Cardinals had come to a decision on who should lead the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. On May 8, 2025, they elected Cardinal Robert Prevost, who chose the name Leo XIV – becoming the first pope from the United States. The Conversation U.S. asked Maureen Day, a researcher at the University of Southern California who has written several books about the contemporary church, to explain what Catholicism looks like in the U.S. at this high-stakes moment. How is Catholic identity and practice in the U.S. changing, compared with a generation ago? In 1987, the year of the first American Catholic Laity survey, nearly half of American Catholics said that faith was 'the most' or 'among the most' important parts of their life. Now, only 37% say the same. Others are leaving the Catholic Church completely. The General Social Survey, a national survey conducted every year or two since the 1970s, asks people about the faith they grew up with, as well as their present religious identity. According to our analysis of its data, in 1973 only 10% of Americans who grew up Catholic had changed religions, and another 7% had left religion altogether. By 2018, each of those percentages had increased to 18%. A Pew Research Center study conducted in 2024 found that for every American who converts to Catholicism, another 8.4 leave. The only reason that Catholicism is able to maintain a relatively steady share of the U.S. population – about 20% – is due to the high percentage of immigrants and migrants who are Catholic. So my co-authors and I chose the title of our 2025 book, 'Catholicism at a Crossroads,' quite intentionally. The church has been facing a variety of challenges for decades, both nationally and across the globe. It's not just about disaffiliation, but also issues such as the sexual abuse crises and bishops' decreasing influence on lay Catholics' personal decisions. In response, church leaders have mostly offered minor adjustments, such as encouraging parishes to become more family- or young adult-friendly. They have not yet made larger shifts that could substantially alter some of those trend lines. Some of your work focuses on what you call 'cultural Catholics' − defined as Catholics who attend Mass less than once per month. How would you describe cultural Catholicism in the U.S. today? A big concern of Catholic leaders right now is decreasing Mass attendance, as weekly Mass is an important precept of the Catholic Church. Sunday Mass is a place for Catholics to participate in the sacraments, strengthen their faith and build relationships with other Catholics. One of the things Catholic leaders tend to attribute this drop in attendance to is a broader trend of secularism. There might be some merit to this, but it can't be the whole story. In our analysis of General Social Survey data, for example, the percentage of Protestant Christians who say they attend worship services weekly was 35% in 1950 and 40% in 2023. Among Catholics, however, weekly Mass attendance has declined from 63% to 30% in these same years. 'Cultural Catholics' who say they attend Mass 'a few times a year' or 'seldom or never' account for 53% of U.S. Catholics. Many of them demonstrate strong ties to Catholic teachings in other ways. For example, around 70% to 80% of cultural Catholics say that it is 'essential' or 'somewhat essential' to Catholicism to help the poor, have a devotion to Mary and practice daily prayer. There are findings that can lend themselves to either a 'glass half empty' or 'glass half full' interpretation. For instance, it might be heartening to Catholic leaders to know that 62% of cultural Catholics say it is important that future generations of their family are Catholic – although this is much lower than the 89% among those who attend Mass frequently. And when these cultural Catholics imagine future generations of their family being Catholic, what does that mean? Perhaps it entails simply a few milestones, like receiving baptism, First Communion and possibly Confirmation – the three sacraments that initiate a person into the Catholic faith. The way many cultural Catholics are loosely tethered to the church, without much involvement in parish life, is a great concern for many Catholic leaders. What main challenges do you see for the American church under the next pope? I would argue that the American church's biggest challenge is how to heal the factionalism within itself. On the one hand, there is a great deal of common ground among the most active Catholics, even with the diversity still found here. According to our analysis, 20% of Catholics are 'high commitment': those who say they attend Mass weekly, are unlikely to leave the faith, and that the church is very important to them. These Catholics are more likely to depart from their political party's position on an issue if it does not align with Catholic teachings. For example, high-commitment Catholic Republicans are much more likely to support the bishops' position on making the immigration process easier for families. High-commitment Catholic Democrats, meanwhile, are more likely to be against abortion than are their moderate- or low-commitment counterparts. In other words, these high-commitment Catholics tend to be less polarized and could find common cause with one another. However, there are more extreme pockets – such as those who called into question the legitimacy of Francis' papacy – that are more militant about their vision of Catholicism. While these Catholics are few in number, they are very vocal. There are fringe groups that mobilized to try to change the direction of the Catholic Church after Francis' papacy, which they saw as a series of liberal reforms. Within more mainstream Catholicism, there are divides over styles of worship, with media attention on some young Americans flocking to more conservative or traditional parishes. However, sociologist Tim Clydesdale and religion scholar Kathleen Garces-Foley found that young adult Catholics are split: While some are attracted to churches with pastors who demonstrate 'orthodoxy,' a similar number prefer 'openness.' What do you wish more people understood about Catholicism in the U.S.? I think the 'missing piece' for many is the incredible diversity of U.S. Catholicism, from race and ethnicity to politics and practice. Many Americans tend to associate the religion with one or two issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and assume that Catholics are fairly monolithic, both in their demographics and their politics. Catholics themselves can also forget – or never learn – that their small slice of Catholicism is not the whole of Catholicism. Recognizing and elevating what unites this vast family of Catholics, both personally and collectively, is going to be critical as the church moves forward. This article was updated on May 8, 2025 to include Pope Leo XIV's election. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Maureen K. Day, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Read more: Francis, a pope of many firsts: 5 essential reads The Catholic Church is increasingly diverse – and so are its controversies Vatican synod is opening the door a bit wider for Catholic women − but they've been knocking for more than 100 years The work mentioned in this article was funded largely by the Louisville Institute. Her previous research has received funding from many sources, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
