“I want to recommend some medicine for all of you. It’s a spiritual medicine. Don’t forget to take it. It’s good for your heart, for your soul, for your whole life.”

Pope Francis, encouraging people to pray the rosary, at the end of his Nov. 17 Sunday Angelus address

“A central moral measure of any budget proposal is how it affects ‘the least of these’ (Mt.25). The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first.”

Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton Calif., chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chair of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, in a Nov. 12 letter to U.S. Senate and House leaders working on a budget package