Roots of Peace

Daniel Yuval, age 11, took a trip to Northern Israel to enjoy the rare sight of snow in Israel. Little did they know that a trip of joy would turn into a nightmare.

Steve McSwain

Author, Speaker, Thought Leader, Spiritual Guide

Here are a few final thoughts I have on why nobody wants to go to Church anymore and what the Church and leaders must do to reverse the decline and maybe even reclaim some of the 35 million Americans who have departed.

Neal Wooten

Writer, artist and standup comedian; author, 'Reternity' and 'The Balance'

As this guy continues to go off script and shoot from the hip, he might be giving nightmares to his advisors and the core Vatican hierarchy, but he's touching a whole segment of the population that other pontiffs have been unable to reach.

Richard J. Rosendall

President, Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA)

If Francis can deal with the fact that his followers are not sheep but humans able to think for themselves, those with no hereditary hotline to heaven can learn from his humility. None of us has all the answers.

John Feffer

Open Society Fellow

Will the new pope not only challenge the social status quo but also, like John Paul II, the world order as well? Here are three areas where the new pope could seriously rock the boat, based on some of his utterances so far.

Brett Foster

Author, 'The Garbage Eater: Poems' and 'Fall Run Road'

Today Pope Francis is visiting Assisi to celebrate the Feast Day of that saint whose name he assumed upon his papal election. His one-day visit will be a busy one, including speeches at charitable organizations such as the Serafico Institute and Caritas, a meeting at the archbishop's residence, and a veneration at the tomb of Saint Francis.

Frank DeGiacomo

Social change engineer

Why might Hispanics and Latinos be Republicans? They are from heavily Catholic countries. Pro-life, anti-gay, anti-contraception, family values Catholics. Enter Pope Francis, the Spanish-speaking Argentinian.

Thomas Worcester

Editor, 'The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits'

Dispensing with the need for a miracle that could be attributed to Blessed John XXIII's intercession, Pope Francis has approved him for canonization as a saint. Francis demonstrates by this decision his exceptional admiration for the pope who called the Second Vatican Council.

Richard J. Rosendall

President, Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA)

The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, has been a ray of sunshine since his elevation in March. His charm, humility and generosity, and his respect even for gays and atheists, have made him far more appealing than the authoritarian medievalist he replaced.

John Zipperer

Vice president of media & editorial, The Commonwealth Club of California

While Ted Cruz pauses long enough to catch his breath, take our Week to Week news quiz and see if you know what's been going on.

Michele Somerville

Poet; Author, 'Black Irish'

Vatican doctrine still holds that same-sex and marriage and love are sinful. The pontiff has yet to fling "open the door" (to employ the terminology Ratzinger et al used) to the discussion of Women's Ordination.

Daniel P. Horan, OFM

Author, 'Dating God: Live and Love in the Way of St. Francis'

I think it's fair to say that today's off-script remarks in Cagliari, Sardinia, represents one of the most "Franciscan" actions of his pontificate so far.

Scott Cairns

Professor of English at University of MIssouri and Co-Director of MU Writing Workshops in Greece

Until the man we know as Pope Francis came more prominently into view, the West could have been characterized (unfairly, it turns out) as hobbled by a taste for certainty, an unduly literal apprehension of the expressions of faith, and a profoundly proscriptive moralism.

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

Senior Religion Editor, The Huffington Post

Pope Francis continues to radically refocus the Catholic Church and, even as a non-Catholic, I am beginning to view him as a personal pastor.

Michelangelo Signorile

Editor-at-large, HuffPost Gay Voices

In saying "I have never been a right-winger" in the same interview in which he's criticizing the church for being too "obsessed" with gay marriage and abortion, Francis is hitting at those Catholic leaders who use gay rights and abortion to wield political power, putting them on notice.

Emily O'Dell

Writer & Assistant Professor of History & Archaeology at the American University of Beirut

I've been wandering from Afghanistan to Mali, trying to visit as many living and dead Sufi masters -- and shrines -- as I possibly can. But perhaps no place excited me more than the splendid shrine of John the Baptist in the Umayyad Mosque of Syria.