Clean and potable water is a human right, not a for-profit commodity dependent on market logic, said the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in a recent document.

A prominent victim of clerical sex abuse has rejected the Polish church's stance that it is following a zero-tolerance policy toward priests and offers moral support for victims.

The major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church said government-backed legislation to transfer control of key national Christian shrines to the Orthodox Church was "a clear threat to the interdenominational peace and agreement established in our state during recent years.

The Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Calabrini hosted about 500 of their neighbours March 22 in a prayer vigil in hopes of stopping the planned opening of a new strip club on a street adjacent to their property in suburban Chicago.

It was at a dinner party, recounted in Plato's dialogue the Symposium, that Socrates confronted the notion put forward by several people that love is a matter of like attracting like. That notion is most explicit in a speech by the dramatist Aristophanes who maintained that human beings were originally spherical beings who were cut in half by Zeus. Henceforth, each half longed to be reunited with its other half and "to heal the wound of human nature."

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

Not all fear is created equal, at least not religiously. There's a fear that's healthy and good, a sign of maturity and love. There's also a fear that's bad, that blocks maturity and love.

RALPH HIMSL

Easter
April 8, 2011

We can understand the frantic running back and forth of Mary Magdalene, Peter and "the other disciple" (as the Gospel excerpt puts it) in the early morning darkness that day of the Resurrection. The tortured body of Jesus they had placed securely in the tomb had vanished.

FR. ROBERT BARRON

The texts that Christians typically read on Palm Sunday have become so familiar that they probably don't sense their properly revolutionary power. But no first-century Jew would have missed the excitement and danger implicit in the coded language of the accounts describing Jesus' entry into Jerusalem just a few days before his death.

FR. AYODELE AYENI CsSP

At the dawn of creation, "the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters (Genesis 1.2)." The waters at creation not only manifest the symbolism of water in Christian theology, but also its creational importance. Water sustains life and its absence spells doom or death.

LASHA MORNINGSTAR

Easter, and Christian eyes rest on the crucifixion. Hearts and souls traverse through Christ's anguish in Gethsemane, the Last Supper knowing Judas would betray him, Peter deny him.