See for Yourself - My younger sister and I shared a bedroom growing up. In our younger days neither of us was very neat, as evidenced by piles of clothes strewn around the room, books on the floor instead of in the bookcase . . .

Pope Francis’ encyclical,"Laudato Si’, on Care For Our Common Home," unequivocally names human behavior as a major cause of global climate change and urges all sectors of society to examine our actions, policies and behaviors in light of this urgent situation. It speaks to how the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are one and that all forms of poverty – environmental and human – need to be addressed in an interconnected way. However, as I read the encyclical I was struck with how it is much more than a moral exhortation on a very complex issue.

The Philippine government’s efforts to implement a peace agreement with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front may have hit another bump in Congress, but on the ground, Missionaries of the Assumption nuns are relentlessly working to forge peace through dialogue. Sr. Marietta Banayo of the Missionaries of the Assumption community in the autonomous region’s Malabang town told Global Sisters Report in late May that the law would bring hope, especially to people in the most underserved areas in Mindanao.

"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  All the members of the body, though they are many, are one body. You are Christ’s body, and individually members of it."

A city in mourning – a nation in shock. I, too, grieve for the loss of nine lives at historic Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston. I, too, hurt for their families and friends. It’s not a passing sympathetic emotion. As a black American now 89 years old, I grew up in the pre-Civil Rights South. Despite it all, as I grieve over the hate-filled slaughter on June 17 in Charleston, the greatest pain I feel is for young Dylann Roof. He was not born a racist; nor with a gun in his hand; nor feeling that his life was threatened or his people’s lives diminished by the existence of other ethnic groups.

Three Stats and a Map - After a gunman with ties to a white supremacy group opened fire on a black church in Charleston, S.C., June 17, it didn’t take long for people to point out that the attack occurred in a state where the Confederate flag still flies on government property. Before long, even former proponents of the flag like South Carolina State Sen. Paul Thurmond were calling for its removal.

Notes from the Field - In my initial explorations of San Francisco after arriving here in August, one of the first unfamiliar things that struck me was the large and ubiquitous presence of the city’s homeless population.

“Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning.”

Moira McQueen, a theology professor and a fan of St. Thomas Aquinas, views her appointment into a prestigious Catholic commission as cumulative of her faith and decisions made throughout her life. “I find that it is only possible to be humble before his incredible gifts of reasoning, insight and faith,” said McQueen of the 13th-century theologian and philosopher.