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VATICAN CITY – Perseverance and prayer are needed as Catholics and Orthodox work toward full unity, Pope Benedict XVI said, welcoming Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus to the Vatican. The head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus spent five hours with Pope Benedict June 16; his visit included a private meeting, a ceremony to sign a joint declaration of ecumenical commitment, a midday prayer service in the Vatican’s Redemptoris Mater Chapel and a two-hour lunch.

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.

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.

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.

CLINTON, N.J. – Once a month, Pat Brisson enters the gates of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton to spend an evening with as many as 60 inmates. To Brisson, however, they are not just convicted criminals; they are also loving mothers.

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.

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.

As Margery Ivester joined some fellow parishioners of St. Paul, Ellicott City, in a recent gardening project at the church, she noticed that she felt more vibrant and content than she had since being diagnosed with depression some 13 years ago.

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.’“