17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) July 26 (2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15)

There is not enough for everyone, so some will have to go without. This “me first” attitude took concrete form years ago in something called “lifeboat ethics.” The image of the lifeboat says it all: resources are limited, so they must be distributed only among the select few. The weak and marginalized, and anyone deemed burdensome, are to be left to themselves.

LIMA, Peru - Pope Francis' upcoming encyclical on ecology and climate is expected to send a strong moral message -- one message that could make some readers uncomfortable, some observers say.

VATICAN CITY - Coaches need to show integrity, fairness, patience, joy and kindness, especially toward those who are struggling, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY - A number of Catholic parishes in Italy are set for a management overall, following a new training program launched May 5 between the Villanova School of Business in the United States and the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

WASHINGTON - Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, offered teasing bits of insider information about Pope Francis' upcoming encyclical on the environment, on what he might say in the United States in the fall, and on what it was like to be in the conclave that elected Francis.

Now that I am under no professional obligation to read court decisions, I generally avoid them. The turgid prose, the unctuous self-regard and the complacent sense of judicial superiority I find unpleasant and soporific.

Right and wrong are not black and white for Canadians. There’s at least 50 shades of grey in the answers Canadians gave the non-profit Angus Reid Institute to questions about morality and ethics.

Much is being made — and deservedly so — of Loyola High School’s victory on behalf of religious freedom. The Jesuit-run Montreal school deserves praise for sticking it out through a seven-year court slog that has made Canada a better place for people of all religions.

OTTAWA - Montreal's Loyola High School has won the right to teach its students the Catholic faith from a Catholic perspective.

TORONTO - To Iain Benson, secularism in politics is comparable to a pair of yellow, spotted pyjamas.

Fossil Free Faith has launched a new program recruiting youth to lead the conversation in their faith communities about divesting in fossil fuel companies.

MANCHESTER, England - Britain has become the first country in the world to legalize the genetic modification of the human germ line in an attempt to fight inherited diseases, but Catholic officials oppose the procedures.

Dustyn Lanz’s investment goals are to “make money; make a difference.”

WASHINGTON - The much-anticipated encyclical by Pope Francis on the environment, expected sometime this spring or early summer, is generating a lot of buzz in Washington and elsewhere.

VATICAN CITY - Tackling the problem of climate change is a serious ethical and moral responsibility, Pope Francis told negotiators from around the world meeting for a climate summit in Lima, Peru.