Catholic Concern for Animals in the United States would like to increase animal rights and animal welfare activism within the Catholic Church. Contact through the website.

AmericanCatholic.org posts resources about St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. The site also keeps a nationwide list of pet/animal blessing ceremonies, many of which occur near his feast day, Oct. 4.

Read a July 5, 2013, article from the Associated Press about the clearing of two former popes to become saints. Pope John Paul II was canonized as a result of a medical miracle in Costa Rica.

Read an Oct. 19, 2012, article from the Catholic News Service about a woman who believes a miracle cured her disease.

The Rev. Chuck Dahm is a Dominican priest and directs the Domestic Violence Outreach program for the Archdiocese of Chicago. He is the author of Parish Ministry in a Hispanic Community, which includes a section on violence and machismo.

The Rev. Robert VerEecke is a Catholic priest and pastor of The Church of St. Francis Xavier in New York, N.Y. He has written about liturgical dance and dance as prayer and leads workshops on embodied prayer in the Boston area.

The Rev. Gerry O’Hanlon is the author of The Recession and God: Reading the Signs of the Times and is director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice in Dublin. Contact through the center.

Charles Clark is an economics professor at St. John’s University in New York and an expert on Catholic social teaching and economics.