Benedict on Jesus
Ethics and Public Policy Center
George Weigel, a senior fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center and a papal biographer, reviews Pope Benedict's new book “Jesus of Nazareth.” The English version of the book is released today in the United States. Our Sunday Visitor will have an analysis of the book by contributing editor Russell Shaw in our May 27 edition.

Money and power can kill
Los Angeles Times (registration site)
A rancher accused of masterminding the slaying of a U.S.-born Catholic nun went on trial Monday in a case widely viewed as a test of the impunity long enjoyed by wealthy Brazilian landowners in the Amazon. Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura is one of two cattlemen charged with ordering the 2005 killing of Sister Dorothy Stang, 73, who had over decades become a champion of poor settlers of the Amazon.

God missing in weddings
Bustedhalo.com
In a review of the new book “One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding” by Rebecca Mead, Christine Whelan notes the decline of religious ceremonies for weddings. In a chapter titled “God and the Details,” Mead, a writer for the New Yorker, points out how the religious and sacramental part of planning a wedding has fallen by the wayside.