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Sometime in the first century CE in Rome, a child disgruntled over educational drudgery etched a curious graffito on the wall of his schoolroom. A delightfully executed donkey turns a millstone, grinding grain, while the accompanying inscription states with all the sarcasm this young scholar could muster, “work, little donkey, as I have worked, and it will be for your benefit.” To be fair, there are reasons to suspect that our reluctant scholar may have been enslaved, and his bitter words may have been, therefore, a response to the harsh physical labor that he endured, in addition to mere schoolwork. His misery, nevertheless, gives us a rare perspective of a child about schooling in a world where children’s perspectives did not matter. And it brings to the fore the ways in which adults dur...

(CNN) — Their daughter Mia was just three years old when Canadian couple Edith Lemay and Sebastien Pelletier first noticed that she was having vision problems. A few years after they first took her to see a specialist, Mia, the eldest of their four children, was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic condition that causes a loss or decline in vision over time. By this point, Lemay and Pelletier, who’ve been married for 12 years, had noticed that two of their sons, Colin, now seven, and Laurent, now five, were experiencing the same symptoms. Their fears were confirmed when in 2019 the boys were diagnosed with the same genetic disorder; their other son Leo, now nine, was given the all clear. “There’s nothing you can really do,” says Lemay, explaining that...

Listen to this story: ROME – In American politics, the “empty chair” is a gimmick used when a candidate refuses an invitation to a campaign debate, so the other tries to capitalize on his or her absence by making the story about who isn’t there. Pope Francis, of course, isn’t a politician, and he’s not heading to the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan this week for a debate. Still, there’s a sense in which the biggest story still is likely to be about who isn’t on hand as much as who is. The most obvious empty chair in Nur-Sultan, the Kazakh capital, will belong to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who was scheduled to be present and to meet the pope, but who abruptly backed out last month. Another unoccupied seat is likely to belong to Chinese President...

The ability to listen is a pivotal attribute of the human being because it is associated with a willful intent to act on what was heard. Abraham heard the voice of the Lord and in faith was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.[1] Mary, the Mother of God listened to the voice of the angel Gabriel and responded by saying “yes” to be the Mother of God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church associates the term to listen with obedience which is the act to submit freely to the word that has been heard because its truth is guaranteed by God who is truth itself.[2] When a person begins a journey to seek the one true God, the initial steps involve the ability to listen and a willingness to follow and investigate what is heard. The understanding here is what is being heard is associated with God our F...

It’s rare to attend an outdoor party in warm weather without hearing people complain about mosquitoes. They swat away, sit in campfire smoke, cover up with blankets and eventually just give up and go indoors. On the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of people who don’t seem bothered by mosquitoes in the slightest. As a medical entomologist who’s worked with mosquitoes for more than 40 years, I’m often asked why some people seem to be mosquito magnets while others are oblivious to these blood-feeding pests buzzing all around them. Most mosquito species, along with a host of other arthropods – including ticks, fleas, bedbugs, blackflies, horseflies and biting midges – require the protein in blood to develop a batch of eggs. Only the female mosquito feeds on blood. Males feed on pla...

EDINBURGH, Ind. (CNS) — Melissa Coles received a call in the late summer of 2019. She didn’t listen long before she figured it was a prank call and hung up. When the person called back, she hung up again. “On the third call, they had all the producers on the line — Kirk Cameron and the Kendrick brothers,” she said, referring to Alex, Shannon and Stephen Kendrick, producers of Christian films such as “Fireproof,” “War Room” and “Courageous.” “They said they wanted to make (the documentary) ‘I Lived on Parker Avenue’ into a movie.” Coles knew the 2018 YouTube documentary well — she was one of its subjects. “It’s three powerful stories wrapped into one,” said Coles: the story of her decision against abortion; the story of the son she offered for adoption; and the story of the couple who adopt...