Focus on the Family, a large, conservative, and politically active ministry located in Colorado Springs, is re-thinking how deeply it should be involved in politics, and whether it needs to start building bridges to those with whom it disagrees.

Benedict is the first pope to resign in 600 years, and experts say his decision highlights how the nature of the papacy has changed.

Host Bob Abernethy and managing editor Kim Lawton are joined by Father Tom Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University and David Gibson of Religion News Service to discuss the future of the Catholic Church after Pope Benedict XVI resigns.

"I look forward to seeing who our next Holy Father is and how he is going to move the church into the future,” says Maureen Ferguson, senior policy advisor for the Catholic Association.

Haris Tarin, director of the Washington, DC office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, says Pope Benedict XVI was outspoken on Syria, preemptive war, human rights abuses, and Middle East peace, and he leaves behind an overall legacy of “quite a positive interaction” between Christians and Muslims.

Sister Maureen Fiedler, host of the public radio program “Interfaith Voices,” asks if lurking among the papal candidates there is “a pope who will look at the human equality of all persons, including men and women.”

This Catholic theologian says the church needs a new pope who is a man of the world with pastoral sensitivity, someone who will “walk in the shoes of Peter.” Watch excerpts from managing editor Kim Lawton’s February 12, 2013 interview with Father Mark Morozowich, dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University in Washington, DC.

On the news of his death in Jerusalem on February 10, we reprise excerpts from managing editor Kim Lawton’s 1999 interview with this eminent Jewish philosopher, leader of liberal orthodoxy, and founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, reflects on Pope Benedict's impact on Jewish-Catholic relations. "There were some bumps in the road, some moments that created tension…but they clearly were aberrations in a path that strengthened relations between the Church and the Jewish community," he says.

Christopher Ruddy, associate professor of historical and systematic theology at the Catholic University in Washington, DC, suggests that the next pope should turn to other bishops around the world to “help him carry the burden of leading the church.”

On Ash Wednesday, outside St. Matthews Cathedral in Washington, D.C., we spoke with Catholics about their reaction to the news that Pope Benedict will step down at the end of February, and what they hope to see from his successor.

After Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise announcement that he is resigning February 28, 2013, the Roman Catholic Church is preparing for a “conclave,” where cardinals under the age of 80 will gather to elect his successor. Kim Lawton looked at the centuries-old process of selecting the pope.

“Can you be Christian and rap at the same time?" Watch more of our interview with Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae.

“The wall is coming down between Christian music and mainstream music,” says this Christian hip-hop and pop artist, who adds that he and other Christian musicians are all “flawed people depending on grace.”

The choir and baroque orchestra of Trinity Wall Street have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for their recording of Handel’s “Israel in Egypt.” Watch the choir and orchestra rehearsing the oratorio, and listen to our interview with director of music Julian Wachner about the hymns he loves and the mission of music both in the church and in the classical music world.

The Christian message, says musical artist Lecrae, “rocked me in a way I’d never been rocked.” But now his Christian music is being described as “phenomenally relevant” and “musically edgy,” and it has achieved huge mainstream success.

Robert Ellsberg got to know Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, near the end of her life and edited her letters and diaries.

She said the models to follow were the saints, and it was the saints who constantly replenished the church.

"We’re not promoting faith. We’re not even promoting interfaith. We’re promoting understanding,” says Dr. Douglas Kindschi, director of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University.

Her letters, papers, photographs, and library all remain inaccessible to the public, so historians and scholars are unable to tell her story in full.