In Honduras, paradise and hell are next-door neighbors, and you can hear the gunshots at night from both places.

Police in Ballwin, Missouri are searching for a gunman who sexually assaulted a woman and shot another in the head in a Catholic religious goods store. Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis (which is near Ballwin) asked for prayers for the victims.

We all share the belief that gun violence has no place in our society, nor does the hate that often precipitates the gun violence.

After a shooting spree late Nov. 7 at a country-music bar in Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles from the heart of Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles asked people to "pray hard" for the victims and their families.

In some quarters, people thought anti-Semitism had been swept under the rug. But hiding it didn't mean getting rid of it, as was painfully evident in the murder of 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue Oct. 27.