On November 9, a divided Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases about just punishment for juveniles convicted of non-homicide offenses. Are life sentences imposed on juvenile offenders cruel and unusual?

In a new book about inspirational poet Mattie Stepanek, who died in 2004, his mother Jeni writes about his short life and lasting legacy.

Read and watch more of Kim Lawton's interview with Jeni Stepanek, who says her son, best-selling poet and speaker Mattie Stepanek, had "a universal message--give and you shall receive."

In his book "Gray Land: Soldiers on War," portrait and documentary photographer Barry Goldstein writes that "even at its best, day-to-day life in a combat zone has a corrosive effect on mind, body, and spirit."

"If any event ever merited the description of miracle," says the Rev. Christian Fuhrer, it was the 1989 revolution that reunited East and West Germany, "a revolution that grew out of the church."

Hastings Center bioethicist and philosopher Daniel Callahan says the common good as a moral value should be the foundation for American health care reform, but it has been largely absent from the current public debate.

City planner Stephen Goldsmith says this private development project of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints creates a "we-they" divide. Jason Mathis of Salt Lake City's Downtown Alliance says the church is creating "a community that is going to last for the next hundred years."

A recent expansion of the federal hate crimes law "does not suspend the First Amendment," says New York Times staff writer David Kirkpatrick, "and there's nobody, I think, on either side of the US Senate or House of Representatives that intends to see preachers locked in jail."

Germany has twice as many mosques as the United States, but it still has a long way to go to provide equal opportunities for Muslim immigrants and their children.

There will always be a purpose to monastic life, say the sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, as long as there is a need in the world for silence, prayer, simplicity, and balance.

Watch National Catholic Reporter senior correspondent John L. Allen Jr. and Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton discuss the Roman Catholic Church's plan to absorb unhappy Anglicans wishing to become Catholics.

Doctors who pray with patients and family members "puts a sense of comfort in you," says Chris Barkley. "Normally, doctors don't do that, and it makes people feel closer to the doctor. You want them to care just as much as you do."

She started a support group for women with emotional problems and histories of sexual abuse, and she wants to earn degrees in social work and theological studies to help others like them.

An 11-year-old autistic girl writes poetry about her inner world.

A partnership between the city of Portland, Oregon and evangelical churches has led to thousands of volunteers completing hundreds of community service projects focused on schools, hunger, homelessness, health, poverty, and the environment.

"Abortion is a health service, " says Rev. Debra Haffner, director of the Religious Institute. "Abortion is a morally objectionable activity," says Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

Watch more of Kim Lawton’s interviews with Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, and Rev. Debra Haffner, executive director of the Religious Institute.

Watch Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, founding director of the Two Futures Project, discuss nuclear disarmament from a Christian perspective.

In his response to receiving the peace prize, the president said "we must pursue a new beginning among people of different faiths and races and religions, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect."

"I want to just go peacefully. The only medications I want are going to be the ones that would comfort me. That’s all I want," says Jill Steuer, a nurse with advanced-stage breast cancer who has decided to stop any kind of treatment and receive hospice care.