If it's such an unhelpful conversation starter, why is "How are you?" still the default greeting we blurt out reflexively? Well, habits and learned social conventions are extremely hard to break.

Each language has its own way of greeting to begin a conversation. So no surprise, therefore, that, when we begin Mass, there is a greeting. After all, the Mass is a conversation. God speaks to us ...

In his Christmas and New Year greetings to the President of the United States of America, Joseph Biden, with whom he plans to have a telephone conversation this evening, Vladimir Putin noted that ...