In Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II, Baltimore-born papal biographer George Weigel reflects in a highly personal way on the 15 years he devoted to chronicling the life and times and impact of John Paul II in Witness to Hope (1999) and The End and the Beginning (2010). It is a story that emphasizes repeatedly and powerfully the idea of providence.

On March 13, 2013 the new pope, a surprise selection, received thunderous cheers when introduced to thousands of pilgrims packed into a drizzly St. Peter’s Square. It was a precedent-setting night. Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first South American pope, the first Jesuit pope and the first pope named Francis.

Beneath Canadians’ cringing at Justin Trudeau’s embarrassing Indian amble, there seemed charitable hope he could use the debacle for hard reflection on the difference between image and reality.

The massacre of 17 innocents at a Parkland, Fla., high school is not fading out of the news as quickly as other similar tragedies that have plagued the United States.

It’s a sneaky way to make a government look progressive, a religion look regressive, and to divide a congregation.

In today’s world, people are mostly foreign to stillness.