I'm a Tennessee boy. I grew up in East Tennessee most of my life, then came up to Philly to go to college and fell in love with this city, and particularly, my neighborhood on the north side of Philadelphia.

And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.

The Catholic understanding has been that the death penalty has been become, like, outdated because in industrialized countries. We have other ways of protecting societies from dangerous people without killing them. And in fact, it's important to remember that much of the world has done away with the death penalty.

A lot of times people say whatever the government touches, they don't do that well, so why would we trust them with the power over life and death? Do we really believe the system is that perfect that it won't make any mistakes? You can't reverse these mistakes.

Mother Theresa said it is not how much we give that is important but how much love you put into doing it. So it is not just how many units of housing we create or how good our health care system is, it is that people have someone to eat dinner with and that people have someone to hold their hand when they die. That is what we are called to do and it is the love of Christ. It is relationships.

We are faithful not to the triumphant golden eagle (ironically, also an imperial symbol of power in Rome) but to the slaughtered Lamb.

This common prayer project has taken years of energy, but we see it not as a way to leave our individual churches, but as a movement we hope to see permeate the larger Church.