"How they relate to God and their fellow man, their diet, their exercise, their avoidance of tobacco and alcohol—all of that collectively contributes to longevity," says Loma Linda University public health professor Larry Beeson.

"People across the political spectrum, right to left, are beginning to wonder if we are committed to a mission whose success is dubious now at best because of the way we’ve defined it," says William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Does the US have a duty to act? Is it possible to somehow intervene in Syria and still do more good than harm? "Nothing is certain in human affairs," says this political and moral philosopher.

In La Crosse, Wisconsin, 96 percent of all adults die with a completed advance directive. The directives are often based on end-of-life conversations that reflect a patient’s spiritual and ethical values.

When you talk about end-of-life issues, according to Gundersen Lutheran Health System’s director of clinical ethics, “you’re really talking about the meaning of life, about your religious beliefs and faith, and ultimately about who you are.”

Advance directives respect familial relationships, spiritual values, and individual choices, says the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

"We live by the work of our hands and also have some left for helping out those who are maybe less fortunate," says the abbess of St. Mary's, Ireland's only Cistercian monastery for women.

"Rick Santorum is a very particular kind of Catholic...A lot of Catholics don’t see themselves in him, and a lot of people actually don’t even know that he’s Catholic. Most people assume he’s an evangelical," says Religion News Service editor in chief Kevin Eckstrom. know that he’s ...

In the brave new world of social media, says communication professor Stephen O'Leary, church authorities from pastors to the heads of denominations "no longer have the kind of control they once did."

“It doesn’t take a lot of misfortune to be on the streets these days. I think everybody in America knows that right now,” says Ann Miller of Helena, Montana, where she and her husband, Wayne, opened God’s Love, an emergency homeless shelter and soup kitchen.

“I feel the voice of God echoing from the mountains all over this place,” says a Syrian Christian pilgrim visiting Deir Mar Musa, an ancient desert monastery in Syria reestablished by Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio.

“When we’re using missiles that kill but place no risk,” suggests Yale law professor Stephen Carter, “that means it’s easier to fight, which means it’s more likely we’ll fight.”

"These schools are the jewels of their neighborhood, and we need to save them," says Susan Work, president of Holy Family Ministries in Chicago.

In the Orthodox Christian tradition fasting is not about deprivation or suffering, says Catherine Mandell, author of "When You Fast: Recipes for Lenten Seasons."

Watch an audio slideshow of Hindu students at Georgetown University celebrating the festival of Holi.

Renowned essayist, farmer, poet, and conservationist Wendell Berry says the Gulf of Mexico oil spill demonstrates that "we're putting too much at stake" in the way we go after oil and mineral resources.

It's Oscar time, and as the Academy Awards are handed out this weekend, revisit our archive of interviews and stories about such recent films as The Tree of Life, Higher Ground, The Way, and more.

"America has an agenda for homosexuals in Uganda," says Pastor Joseph Serwadda, and accepting gay rights as human rights and human rights as gay rights "is going to be very tough on Africa."

"It’s as though you take all of your nightmares about plague or destruction or war or torture or natural catastrophe, and you just wrap it into a huge single nightmare, and you get the Book of Revelation."

You receive ashes on your forehead “to remember that life is short … you come from dust and you will return to dust,” says Julie Bringman, director of Sunday night ministries at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, DC.