The Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who authored The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, won the 1970 Nobel Prize in literature. Through his writings, he had made the world aware of the dehumanizing and repressive measures of the former Soviet Union.

Recent research done by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported some amazing statistics about Catholics and their knowledge of the faith. According to the research, 40% of Catholics did not realize that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass. 46 % of Catholics could not name Bethlehem as Jesus’ native place.

In the late 1800s, Sonora Smart Dodd, along with her five siblings, was raised by her father, a single parent and a Civil War Veteran. Once, when she heard her pastor preach a sermon about Mother’s Day, she was deeply moved, reflecting on what her own father had done. When she was a child, widowers frequently put their children in the care of others. But, Sonora’s father had raised his entire family by himself.

News reports of the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, the government’s handling of the terrorist attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya and the seizure of AP reporters’ phone records by the Justice Department have plunged President Obama’s administration into a maelstrom of controversy. Partisan discussions of the issues have raised many questions that remain unanswered.

On May 22, 2013, Pope Francis preached in the chapel of his residence at Domus Sanctae Marthae in the Vatican. He based his remarks on the gospel text of Mark 9:38-40. His homily set the media abuzz. There was a frenzy of reports claiming that Pope Francis has shown an unprecedented openness to non-Catholics.

Every year, the Pope meets with top ranking Vatican officials a few days before Christmas. But this is more than just the polite exchange of greetings for the celebration of Christ’s birth. Rather, it is an occasion for the Pope to reflect with his chief advisors on what he sees to be the challenges facing the world and the Church.

From the time of Solomon, more than 900 years before Christ, Jews in the land of Israel made their pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year. From the early centuries of the Christian Church, prayerful Christians have made their way to the sacred places where Jesus lived and died and appeared after his Resurrection, as well as to places sacred to Jewish pilgrims.