The pope’s gathering of economists in Assisi next month is part of a long process of establishing a new economic model that goes beyond financial self-interest, writes the social entrepreneur Felipe Witchger.

"You could see his consternation when he said that for some people it was all about celibacy and not about the Amazon," said Bishop William A. Wack of Pensacola-Tallahassee.

Pope Francis warned the bishops that many in the media and the general public will be focusing on those two issues -- married priests and women deacons -- while he wanted to focus on the social, pastoral, ecological and cultural challenges facing the Amazon region.

Bishop McElroy added, "There is no mandate in universal Catholic social teaching that gives a categorical priority to either of these issues as uniquely determinative of the common good."

Congress cannot continue to sit idly by while the executive branch continues to demolish our already broken immigration system. This body has been negligent for far too long in its duty to pass a fair and humane immigration reform.

In Poland, paczki are eaten on the Thursday before Lent, but they are a Fat Tuesday tradition in Polish communities across the United States.

But much of the church remains -- its soaring ceilings lined with beautiful frescos, its towering Corinthian columns and even its ornate wooden confessional.

A majority of the deaths documented by Human Rights Watch in the report Wednesday occurred less than a year after the deportees returned to El Salvador; some were within days. The organization also confirmed at least 70 cases of sexual assault or other violence following their arrival in the country.

Activists in the case argued they were working with the group No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, and thus were acting on their religious beliefs to save immigrant lives.

In a homily Father VanDenBroeke gave on Jan. 5, the feast of the Epiphany and, in Minnesota, Immigration Sunday, he acknowledged the complexity of immigration as a political issue and that the Bible challenges Catholics to "welcome strangers."