In 2008, over 154,000 people gathered in Seattle, Washington, (along with seven million who watched online) to talk about compassion. Anchored by the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and others, the five-day meeting explored ways that children and adults could commit to living with compassion for others and for themselves.

Pope Francis is warning Catholics not to demonize those who are not members of the church, and he specifically defended atheists, saying that building walls against non-Catholics leads to “killing in the name of God. ” “… this ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God,” Francis said Wednesday (May 22) in remarks at the informal morning Mass that he celebrates in the chapel at the Vatican guesthouse where he lives.

It’s hard to open a newspaper in South Africa without being saddened by front-page stories about police corruption and brutality, the abuse of women, and the misuse of political power. Yet, almost everyone you meet shows some measure of hope and a determination to help make things better—very often through prayer.

When news is disturbing, it’s worth looking at the big picture. Earth is home to more people than at any time in history.

“The global embrace of Internet technologies has reconfigured the fabric of society for congregations in a contemporary context. Adaptation to these new tools of ministry in the 21st century is no longer the luxury it was in the 1990s.

Americans spend $34 billion a year on so-called alternative medicine—botanical pills, acupuncture, energy healing, and the like—despite the fact that few of these techniques are backed by any science. Study after study has rejected the ability of such treatments to cure.

In a recent New York Times story, seven Newtown police officers give a firsthand account of the carnage they found inside Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14.   In the piece, Eric Brown, a lawyer for the union that represents the police officers, said many of the officers who responded to the school shooting will likely suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the rest of their careers.

Normally speaking, Our Lady of Apostles Hospital would have been seriously affected by the waves of unrest that engulfed the city of Jos in northern Nigeria in the past decade. Its location on the borderline between the Muslim-dominated Masallacin Juma’a neighbourhood and the Christian Apata community is precarious, to say the least.

China, a country with a population of 1. 3 billion, has about 25 million Christians, said a state-run Chinese daily Monday.

Congress will become … more religiously diverse this January, after Tuesday’s (November 6) election of the first Hindu representative and first Buddhist senator. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, will become the first Hindu American congresswoman, after defeating her Republican rival on Tuesday.