Children return home after caroling on Christmas in Santa Rita de Castilla, a small town on the bank of the Maranon River in the Peruvian Amazon. CNS photo/Barbara Fraser ...read more

Choir members sing carols in front of a figure of Christ during Christmas Eve Mass at a Catholic church in Shenyang, China. CNS photo/Sheng Li, Reuters ...read more

People pack into the popular Christkindlmarkt to shop and see the Christmas illuminations in Vienna’s Rathauspark. Vienna is known for its outdoor Christmas markets with handcrafted Christmas ornaments, which are popular destinations for locals and tourists during Advent. CNS photo/Chaz Muth ...read more

SETTLE FOR LESS Turns out living simply and settling for ‘good enough’ is a sure fire way to be happy. Barry Schwartz in his popular TED talk on the paradox of choice suggests that we’ve been ingrained with the idea that the way to be happy is to maximize our freedom. And the way that ...read more

  A religious brother teaches young Cheridan Sanders how to swim; and that having faith means believing in a reality that does not exist, yet. — I grew up in mission territory. ‘South West’, as it was known then, was hot, dry and isolated. Even today it remains one of the least densely populated nations. ...read more

The first time I heard of Archbishop Oscar Romero was during my Grade 12 religion class. Now, religion was the last class of the day and so there was every reason to just skip it. Something that Mr. Whitebread (no kidding, that was his surname) was all too aware of, and took measures against. His ...read more

There’s this great scene early in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy unsuccessfully tries to relate to her family about an incident involving her dog Toto. After she’s brushed off with the admonishment “find yourself a place where you won’t get into any trouble” Dorothy muses to her dog Toto, “‘Some place where there isn’t ...read more

As part of my documentary about women in the Church, this week I followed Sr. Helen Prejean as she she worked to save the life of Richard Glossip, a man on death row in Oklahoma. The week began on a grim note. Richard’s execution was only a few days away and there seemed to be no ...read more

James W. Foley, the American journalist and war correspondent that was the first American beheaded by ISIS in August, 2014, once said: “Drop a pebble in the water: Just a splash, and it is gone; But there’s half-a-hundred ripples Circling on and on and on, Spreading, spreading from the center, Flowing on out to the ...read more

  I think I may have experienced a minor miracle this week.  I was in the middle of a shoot when I got the call from our Director of Programming. It was an opportunity to cover the story of a death row inmate in Oklahoma City whose life Sister Helen Prejean (of Dead Man Walking ) was campaigning ...read more