I was not physically in Krakow for World Youth Day 2016. A series of scheduling practicalities made it necessary for me to stay in Toronto, anchoring Salt + Light’s coverage of WYD 2016. Still, there were moments when the line between living WYD and living it vicariously through my colleagues on the ground was blurred. ...read more

The flush region of Caesarea Philipi is about an hour’s drive north of the Sea of Galilee.  It was given to Herod the Great by Caesar Augustus around 20 BCE, who in turn handed it down to his son Philip.  Philip named it Caesarea in honor of Caesar, and his own name eventually became associated ...read more

“Apart from God’s Mercy, there is no other source of hope for human beings.” - Pope John Paul II ...read more

A couple of months before arriving in Jerusalem, I was driving my six-year-old daughter to school and she asked me about Jesus’ footprints. Not the real one located inside the Chapel of the Ascension, rather, she wanted to talk about the ones from famous poem called Footprints. She had seen the poster of it hung ...read more

A timeless memorial to the millions… During our Pilgrimage to the Holy Lands, we made a visit to a place the name of which I never knew, but which now I will never forget. It was a place of silence, a time to listen to the silenced, to the echoing cries of suffering, and to ...read more

We know very little about the woman who is described as the apostle of the apostles, so this village helps fill in some background. ...read more

Referring to the night of the Easter Vigil, in the Easter Proclamation (the Exsutet) we pray that “This is the night, when once you led our forebears, Israel’s children, from slavery in Egypt.” The Easter Proclamation also says that “This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the ...read more

Our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land offered the chance to visit the ancient sites where key events in our faith story took place, and meet people living there today who are making sure those sites do not become museums. Visiting Qubeibeh, the West Bank, we met the Salvatorian sister who helped found the Qubeibeh ...read more

The sun rises as people gather for an ecumenical Easter service in Scituate, Mass., March 31, 2013. (CNS photo/Jessica Rinaldi, Reuters) ...read more

U.S. President John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jacqueline, and their children, Caroline and John Jr., are seen on Easter Sunday in 1963. (CNS photo/Reuters) ...read more