The Vatican’s new declaration, “Dignitas Infinita” (”Infinite Dignity”), garners praise from U.S. Catholic leaders for its comprehensive addressing of key issues surrounding human dignity, including poverty, migration, abuse, gender issues, and digital violence.

The declaration from the Vatican goes beyond the focus on single issues and throws a spotlight on the much broader field of violations of human dignity.

Good preaching requires mastery of rhetoric, particularly the tools of repetition and organization, says John Baldovin, S.J. But also, he adds with hyperbolic emphasis, “you have to read, read, read, read, read and pray, pray, pray, pray, pray.”

The Major Penitentiary is sometimes referred to as chief confessor of the Catholic Church because he has broad faculties that are reserved to the Holy See to grant pardon and forgiveness for sins for which an ordinary priest or bishop cannot grant absolution.

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Stanislaus, bishop, martyr, by James T. Keane

A Reflection for Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter, by Sebastian Gomes