The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service dedicates a section of its Web site to animal welfare issues.

Read a Sept. 20, 2011, article from Christianity Today about a Lutheran pastor’s claims that he is in possession of a “miracle cure” capable of healing any disease.

Read a May 25, 2013, article from The Huffington Post about an Ohio family who believes they saw a Virgin Mary apparition.

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.

Dr. Elizabeth E. Carr is a California and Paris based marriage and family therapist with a Ph.D. in spirituality. Dr. Carr has worked and lectured in nine countries across Asia, the Americas and Europe.

Joan Borysenko of Colorado is an author and Harvard-trained medical scientist who specializes in mind-body topics. She has written about gratitude.

Dr. Uma Mysorekar is a former president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Flushing, N.Y., and a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist. She has represented Hinduism at interfaith conferences sponsored by the White House. She has written about the Hindu view of gratitude.

The Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder is a United Methodist minister in San Diego and coordinator of Mental Health Ministries, an effort that grew from her own experience of depression. She is the author of a paper, “Mental Illness and Families of Faith: How Churches Can Respond.”