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Good morning!  Actually, as I write this, it is evening here in Rome, but time has been a funny barrier for us pilgrims today, so I will stick with Minnesota time.

“Professionally, my interest was, here’s a brand ... that’s really got a black eye. Wouldn’t it be interesting to take it on as a marketing and communications challenge?”

“It was magnificent. It was very informal,” Archbishop Bernard Hebda said. “The Holy Father was very open. We could talk about anything with him. He was very forthcoming with us and very supportive, very fraternal.”

“There’s a lot of Catholics who have heard about the Father and heard about Jesus but know very little about the Spirit,” Father Michael Becker said. “And many haven’t really experienced the Holy Spirit. ... There needs to be a kind of an awakening to the gift. And once there is, wow. Joy floods the soul, and longing for others to experience the Holy Spirit becomes a great mode of evangelization.”

St. Peter's transformation from an erring disciple to the "rock" on which Jesus built his Church was not the result of lessons gleaned from a "self-help" book, but from growing ever closer to the Lord, said Bishop John M. Quinn of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.

The "ad limina" visits bishops are required to make to the Vatican are occasions to be honest about challenges, while also being encouraged to hope, said Bishop John T. Folda of Fargo, North Dakota.

When Jane Mohr of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park first met Father John Fitzpatrick in the late 1970s, she was studying nursing and working on a college degree.

Following Sunday Mass at the Pontifical North American College (celebrated by alumnus Archbishop Hebda and assisted by seminarians from our archdiocese), we met art historian Elizabeth Lev for a tour of pre-Christian Rome, beginning at the iconic Colosseum.