Check out these recent articles from around the web:

White House, Congress Should Remember Pope Francis During Budget Process by Emily Conron: “The Catholic Church has said it again and again: the federal budget is a moral document that represents the priorities of a nation. While Washington might consider these cuts a small sliver, the poor who benefit from these programs know otherwise. They are the ones who will be disproportionately impacted by a budget that cuts global health funding.”

Why Can’t My Son Receive the Eucharist? by Anna Nussbaum Keating: “For the first thousand years or more, the rites of initiation (baptism, first communion and confirmation) were given all at one time to children…Perhaps now is the time to rediscover the practice of infant communion.”

Divorce & Remarriage by Michael Sean Winters: “In our Roman tradition, we do not bar a person from Communion at the time of divorce but at the time when that person is filled with hope, beginning a new life with another, and seeking to regularize that united life before the law and before God. It is then that we say, “Sorry, no more communion.” I understand the theology and the canons on this point, but experientially, that is to say pastorally, the focus is off.”

Why reinventing the toilet is a women’s and girls’ issue by Melinda Gates: “At the Gates Foundation, I spend a lot of time learning about the problems facing the world’s poorest people—especially women and children. Our work is driven by the principle that every life has equal value, and every person should have the same opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. And to live with dignity. We invest in sanitation issues because having access to a toilet is a prerequisite for health and dignity.”

Pot-coloured glasses by David Frum: “Ordinary marijuana users should receive civil penalties; repeat users belong in treatment, not prison; communities should experience law enforcement as an ally and supporter of local norms, not an outside force stamping young people with indelible criminal records for mistakes that carry fewer consequences for the more affluent and the better connected. It’s also true, however, that these alternative methods can succeed only if the background rule is that marijuana is illegal.”

Central African Republic: Christians and Muslims Counter Ethnic Cleansing by Rev. Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, and Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga: “We support newly elected President Catherine Samba-Panza and her urgent call for a UN peacekeeping operation as soon as possible to take over from the African and French troops currently on the ground. This UN Operation must be robust not only to help restore security, law and order in our country, but it must bring resources to help rebuild our country’s administration. Without strong institutions, we risk the repeat of cycles of violence.”

What Suffering Does by David Brooks: “Think of the way Franklin Roosevelt came back deeper and more empathetic after being struck with polio. Often, physical or social suffering can give people an outsider’s perspective, an attuned awareness of what other outsiders are enduring. But the big thing that suffering does is it takes you outside of precisely that logic that the happiness mentality encourages. Happiness wants you to think about maximizing your benefits. Difficulty and suffering sends you on a different course.”

The Nun Who Got Addicted to Twitter by Emma Green: “This makes it seem like being a nun on social media is at once totally mundane and totally radical. It’s about being a normal, 21st-century American who Instagrams silly selfies and tweets about Noah, sharing tiny bits of an everyday life. But it’s also about using every means available to reach people with the word of Christ, incorporating God into every part of life. This, Burns says, is how the work of modern evangelization is done.”

Rich Countries’ Dirty Money by Erik Solheim: “Corruption corrodes trust in our financial institutions, brings out the worst in even the best of us, and, when one considers its impact on ordinary lives, is morally repugnant. We must take our own rules and responsibilities more seriously.”

Today’s Stay-at-Home Moms by Anna Sutherland: “About half of working mothers and working fathers say that they work because they need the income, when they’d prefer to be home with their children. It’s hard to make sense of these figures without suspecting that the ‘grass is greener’ adage is relevant here. All the same, these seemingly inevitable conflicts between parents’ desires and their current situations make policies geared toward flexibility all the more desirable.”

Gift of Service and Self by Marina Olson: “When we break our isolation and take responsibility by allowing another to depend upon us, we give ourselves to that other.  We place ourselves at the service of their good, and integrate ourselves into a community.”

Does Christianity really prefer charity to government welfare? by Elizabeth Stoker: “Since the guarantee of stability promised by an existence minimum is the foundation upon which lives can be built — and because voluntary private charity is by nature not a guarantee — the state is the best mechanism to deliver a baseline standard of living.”

Remembering and learning from Rwanda’s victims by Michael Gerson: “In the end, those with murderous intent view impunity as an invitation. And those who choose to be bystanders find that the cries of grief become indictments, and that the graves cannot be unfilled.”

Xenophobic Chill Descends on Moscow by NY Times: “From the moment that Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea cast a new, bitter chill over relations with the West, a sinister jingoistic vibe has pervaded this unsettled capital — stirred up by state-controlled television and Mr. Putin himself.”

Raising a Moral Child  by Adam Grant: “When our actions become a reflection of our character, we lean more heavily toward the moral and generous choices. Over time it can become part of us.”