This Palm Sunday the church marks a momentous event in Jesus’ ministry: his humble yet memorable entrance into Jerusalem as a multitude waits to greet him. This past Tuesday leaders from around the world and some 200,000 well-wishers crowded St. Peter’s Square in Rome to witness Pope Francis’ memorable yet humble entrance . . .

The prophet Isaiah proclaims in the first Mass reading for Palm Sunday that the Lord “has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.” Battered and wearied by the 2012 election results, dispirited Republicans received a rousing wake-up call from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus . . .

On Palm Sunday all eyes are on Jerusalem, the scene where the Holy Week drama will be played out. In Mideast policy circles all eyes are on Jerusalem this week as President Barack Obama visits Israel for the first time in his presidency. A warmer tone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom the president has had tense relations, seems to be the principal goal . . .

The psalmist this Sunday cries out to God in his suffering: “Why have you abandoned me?” a cry we recall this Sunday as we remember the Passion of Christ on the cross. Ten years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, many Iraqis who still suffer daily due the consequences of that invasion feel abandoned . . .

“Oh, yes? And I’m Napoleon.”

A recent poll found that 52 percent of U.S. Catholics think the official church has lost touch with them; 62 percent want the new pope to change the church's position on priestly celibacy and women's ordination; 64 percent want the ban on contraception lifted; and 84 percent want the pope to do more about sexual abuse.