Then the pope asked: “What is the cross for you? Yes, it is the Christian symbol. We make the sign of the cross, but often we do not do it well.”

Many readers who thought health care reform should include universal coverage commented that, as Catholics, they think health care should address their concern for every human life.

There would be no atheists if God appeared in the sky. But there’d be no believers either.

“Where might you expect to find the baptized?” asks Rowan Williams in Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer. “In the neighbourhood of chaos,” he replies.

Stories of persistent women abound in the Gospels.