VATICAN CITY - On the eve of meeting Pope Francis, Jean Vanier spoke about the importance of joy, tenderness and practical resistance to the "throwaway" culture.

VATICAN CITY - Thousands of rare manuscripts until now accessible only to scholars at the Vatican will go online over the next four years, thanks to help from a Japanese information technology company.

There are three kinds of performers. The first, while singing a song or doing a dance, are making love to themselves. The second, while performing, are making love to the audience. The third, while on stage, are making love to the song, to the dance, to the drama itself.

In the blink of an eye, human beings make sweeping judgments about people and situations. We can judge a person’s social class, education, cultural awareness, personality traits and whether we like them or not. First impressions are often useful — who could really operate without them? But the story from Samuel shows us that these outward appearances can be superficial, deceiving and just plain wrong.

VATICAN CITY - Without a canonization ceremony, Pope Francis will declare three pioneers of the Catholic Church in the Americas saints April 2, according to a Jesuit working on the causes.

VATICAN CITY - Russell Crowe, who plays the title character in the new Hollywood blockbuster Noah, lobbied hard for a personal audience with Pope Francis. What he got March 19 instead was a blessing.

ROME - The Vatican said March 17 that Pope Francis will preside over a prayer vigil dedicated to victims of mob violence in Italy and their families.

The Church has always struggled with sex, but so has everyone else. There aren’t any cultures, religious or secular, pre-modern or modern, post-modern or post-religious, that exhibit a truly healthy sexual ethos. Every church and every culture struggles with integrating sexual energy, if not in its creed about sex, at least in the living out of that creed.

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A) March 23 (Exodus 17:3-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-2, 5-8; John 4:5-42)

When the going gets tough, faith is often the first victim. Negativity, doubt and fear corrode faith and courage like the strongest acid.

NEW YORK - Cardinal Timothy Dolan said March 9 that Pope Francis is asking the Catholic Church to look at the possibility of recognizing civil unions for gay couples, although the Archbishop of New York said that he would be “uncomfortable” if the Church embraced that position.