One moment, people were cheering, anxiously anticipating their friends crossing the finish line in the Boston marathon. The next moment, stunned and bloody, they were fleeing in fright from harms’ way. Chechen-born Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokha had turned their would-be victory shouts into victims’ screams of horror and pain.

Recently in Pennsylvania, members of our military attended an Army Reserve briefing program warning them to be on the lookout for terrorists. Military personnel were told that they are prohibited from taking leadership roles in any organization that the Pentagon considers ‘extremist.’ Furthermore, they are forbidden to distribute the organization’s literature.

[On Saturday, April 6, 2013, in response to Pope Benedict XVI’s call for the Year of Faith, our diocese held its first Diocesan Catechetical Convention in forty years. I offer the following reflection as an aid to understanding the true nature and purpose of all catechesis.]

Not many news reports carried the story. But somehow it was able to leak. A professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton was teaching the course called Intercultural Communications. In one exercise to demonstrate the deep-seated emotions that surround issues, the professor asked the students to write Jesus’ name in big letters on a paper, place the paper on the ground and then stomp on the name of Jesus. Ryan Rotela, a junior, refused.

Habemus Papam! With these traditional words, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Protodeacon of the Sacred College of Cardinals, announced to the world, “We have a Pope!” And, do we have a Pope! He wasted no time in taking the world by surprise.

Overlooking the Grand Canal and nestled next to St. Mark’s Basilica stands Venice’s Palazzo Ducale. Its pink and white marble Gothic façade glittering in the sunlight and the opulence of its interior -- ceilings gilded with gold and walls laden with costly paintings -- boast of the power and prosperity that Venice once had.

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2). Shakespeare puts these oft-quoted words on the lips of Juliet when she tells Romeo that she loves him, not for his family wealth and fame, but for himself. For her, his family name means nothing. In her eyes, one name is as good as another.

David is the only one man in the entire Bible called “a man after God’s own heart” (cf. Acts 13:22; 1 Sam 13:13-14). Anointed by God, he established the Golden Age for the kingdom of Israel. From the time of Samuel the prophet onward, David became the prototype of the Messiah yet to come.

No Pope will ever win the universal applause of the world. The Pope proclaims divine revelation. The world wants only human opinion. The Pope is bound by the Word of God. Along with the college of bishops, indeed with the whole Church, he listens attentively to the Word, and, then, by the charism of his office, he offers the saving truth of our redemption.

In his second inaugural address, before a crowd half the size of those at his first inauguration, President Obama rose briefly to the heights of rhetoric. He affirmed the enduring strength of our Constitution and the promise of democracy. As he continued his 18-minute speech, he reiterated the themes of his campaign. Some may be inclined to agree with him that “an economic recovery has begun.”

Three years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. With the assistance of James Madison, the bill became law on January 16, 1786. The law guaranteed that all individuals have the natural right to exercise their religious beliefs.

The last pagan emperor of Rome, Julian the Apostate, had no misgivings about the power of the Christian faith. Despite fierce persecutions, Christians were increasing in number. The emperor understood that the Christians were eroding the imperial authority neither by force nor by political power.

Life in ancient Rome was cheap. Gladiators turned war into a cruel sport. Just below the surface of the parades and the pomp of these games, there lurked a low regard for the dignity of the person and the value of human life. Spectators crowded Rome’s Coliseum and cheered as hundreds of gladiators were mauled, mangled and murdered before their eyes.

On March 16, 1964, in a special message to Congress, President Lyndon Johnson said, “Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of the Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.” This was his famous declaration of war on poverty.