Patrick O'Neill

Pope John Paul II spent more than a quarter century making many Catholic women, gays and pro-choicers very angry. Yet, despite his strong stands against women’s ordination, same-sex unions and abortion, John Paul was a hard man to dislike. The Pope, who died Saturday, left behind a legacy of love, mercy, peace and human dignity. […]

Among those at the anti-war protest in Fayetteville on Saturday was Michael Berg, whose family’s story has come to symbolize the horror and brutality of the war in Iraq. Last May, Berg’s youngest child, Nick, 26, who was working as a contractor in Iraq, was kidnapped and beheaded by a resistance group opposed to the […]

Just before 2 a.m. on March 11, Central Prison guards strapped William “Bugs” Powell to a gurney and rolled him into the execution chamber. As the deadly mixture of poison was being injected into Powell’s body, the Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck was calling people to prayer on the sidewalk in front of the prison. Many […]

Former UNC sociologist Peter Bearman has never met death row inmate William “Bugs” Powell. In fact, before he got a call two weeks ago from Powell’s attorneys, Bearman only knew Powell as a “data point” on a 1997 research study Bearman conducted for the attorneys of another condemned prisoner. Powell, 58, is slated to be […]

Rev. Roy Bourgeois, founder of a group that has sponsored more than a decade of annual protests at the U.S. Army’s combat training school at Ft. Benning, Ga., is headed to the Triangle for two events this week. Bourgeois has received international attention for his human rights work associated with the effort to close the […]

Dan Schwankl is a nice guy. In fact, anyone who meets Schwankl figures that out in a second. A Siler City native, Schwankl is polite, smiles often, goes to church on Sundays and enjoys family get-togethers. A great student, Schwankl, 31, earned a North Carolina Teaching Fellows scholarship to UNC-Chapel Hill. After graduation, Schwankl served […]

There’s a myth that the Rev. Ray Buchanan wants to debunk. Most U.S. citizens believe the government just hands out loads of money to the world’s poorest nations. When asked what percentage of the U.S. gross national product goes to help the world’s poor, many people say five to 10 percent. The true figure is […]

In a Tonight Show spoof last week, Jay Leno showed a Christmas card that read: “Peace On Earth.” The inside message read: “Just Kidding. Donald Rumsfeld.” There’s a lot of truth in humor, and for the third year in a row the Christian world awaits the birth of the Prince of Peace while the United […]

Mike Farrell has traveled the globe to promote human rights. His travels have placed him in the company of torture victims in El Salvador and Yugoslavia, with a man who spent 18 years on Illinois’ death row for a murder he did not commit, and in a chapel in Rwanda, where he had to step […]

At Raleigh’s Central Prison, Charles “Tony” Walker was being prepped for execution. At the same time, Durham attorney Paul M. Green and co-counsel Jonathan Megerian were hard at work filing last-minute court briefs trying to save Walker’s life. In Winston-Salem, Walker’s cousin, Vera Jordan, the woman who cared for Walker as a child, was praying […]