ASSISI, Italy – On a pilgrimage to the birthplace of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Benedict XVI appealed for peace in the Middle East and a return to “responsible and sincere dialogue” to end armed conflicts. The pope’s one-day trip June 17 marked the 800th anniversary of the conversion of St. Francis, a figure the...Read More

In Thomas McCarthy’s commentary letter about “Remembering World War II,” (CR, June 7), I don’t know what the uniform of a racial minority looks like.Read More

After celebrating his 60th anniversary as a priest on June 10, Father Casimir Peterson, 86, said his service as an altar boy and the guidance of the sisters who taught him at Our Lady of Pompei, Baltimore, were inspirational in his discernment to the priesthood.Read More

ARLINGTON, Va. – Mary Karen Read, a 19-year-old victim of the shootings at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, aspired to be a teacher. Now she is posthumously teaching a lesson of forgiveness in the aftermath of the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.Read More

SAN ANTONIO – Although the early founders of the socially responsible investment movement might be described as “fools with faith,” they can look with pride to years of providing a platform for religious communities to use their moral voice and financial vote to influence corporations, according to one of those pioneers.Read More

CUMBERLAND – In a small Western Maryland town whose residents pride homegrown leadership, Mayor Lee Fiedler knows he is probably one of the unlikeliest persons to hold Cumberland’s top job at City Hall.Read More

VATICAN CITY – When a Vatican-led team of art restorers started scrubbing and scrutinizing what was underneath centuries of soot and grime caked on the ceiling and walls of a major shrine in Rome, they made a spectacular discovery. A whole pictorial series of brilliantly colored, 16th-century frescoes by influential Flemish landscape artist Paul Bril...Read More

WASHINGTON – After Polish-born poet, author and Holocaust survivor Lena Allen-Shore had her first private meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1996, her younger son, Jacques, told her, “You have to write an article. The title of the article should be ‘Building Bridges.’“Read More