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A 33-year old man from Malmö has been sentenced to ten years in prison by a US court for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old he met online. The man travelled to the city of Corpus Christi in Texas in October 2008 and was arrested ten days later by police in a hotel room. The girl, who had ran away from home, was found in the room partially clothed. Hotel personnel raised the alarm after recognising the girl from a missing persons poster. According to Texas law, the age of consent is 17 years old. The Swede pleaded guilty on eight counts...

A capias has been issued for the arrest of Corpus Christi residents Raymond “Ace” Walker, Garratt W. Harris and Paul Isaac Bueno for allegedly killing nine deer on the Walker Ranch and dumping the deer in the Nueces River. “The three men could have been charged with 27 Class A misdemeanors (3 counts times nine deer), but we decided not to ‘throw the book at them’ because they confessed,” said Clay Pipkin, Live Oak County game warden. Walker, Harris and Bueno were charged with waste of game and hunting at night, both Class A misdemeanors, for allegedly killing nine deer...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Corpus Christi’s cut of federal stimulus dollars will improve city roads, pay the rent for people living in housing projects, train math and science teachers and send more people to trade schools and college on government scholarships. Those projects, along with dozens of others, are part of about $200 million of federal stimulus projects coming to the area. The money should create close to 2,000 jobs, based on White House formulas. Those job creation numbers likely are “severely inflated,” said Jason Alaniz, the city’s intergovernmental relations project manager in charge of stimulus projects.

Date: August 22, 2009 Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Location: Representative Solomon P. Ortiz (D – 27) 3649 Leopard Street, Suite 510 Corpus Christi, TX 78408 Recess Rally! Join us on Saturday, August 22nd in a nationally coordinated rally to show our continued opposition to socialized health care! Our elected representative Solomon Ortiz (D-27) has shown every sign that he plans to vote yea on a government subsidized health care reform bill. Time is running out! Join us in front of his office on August 22.

On Visiting Jesus Christ In the Blessed Sacrament "WHERE is the new-born King of the Jews?" inquired the three Magi of Herod, king of Jerusalem. "Where is He?" they repeat in their great desire to find Him. "We have seen His star in the East, and we have come to adore Him. Ah, tell us where He is; we desire so much to see Him; we have made so long a journey in order to become acquainted with Him!" What a joy must it not have been for these three holy kings to learn that the Saviour of the world...

Back in the 1970s, when there was a lot of liturgical innovation going on, Dorothy Day invited a young priest to celebrate mass at the Catholic Worker. He decided to do something that he thought was relevant and hip. He asked Dorothy if she had a coffee cup he could borrow. She found one in the kitchen and brought it to him. And, he took that cup and used it as the chalice to celebrate mass. When it was over, Dorothy picked up the cup, found a small gardening tool, and went to the backyard. She knelt down, dug a...

There is a sign on the sacristy wall of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Basilica in Emmitsburg, Md., which reads, “Priest of God, celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass.” It is a potent reminder to the priest to pay attention to what he is doing. He is not to celebrate the sacred mysteries with a careless or cavalier attitude, but with the proper reverence and disposition. He is not at the altar to entertain or improvise, nor should he rush through the Mass as quickly as possible. He is a priest,...

ROME, JUNE 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is warning of a "serpentine secularization" that penetrates the Church and is manifested in "formal and empty Eucharistic worship." The Pope celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi today in Rome, presiding over Mass in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and then processing with the Blessed Sacrament to the Basilica of St. Mary Major. In his homily, the Holy Father illustrated the importance of faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, telling the thousands of pilgrims that this faith "cannot be taken for granted." "Today there arises the risk of...

CORPUS CHRISTI — Property owners who ignored a code violation fine 30 years ago will find those fees revisiting them with decades’ worth of interest. And if you’re the unlucky owner a house formerly occupied by someone who avoided paying fines, now you get the bill. The city will work with individual homeowners if they don’t believe they should pay the bill, interim finance director Constance Sanchez said. Last week, the city sent out more than 8,000 bills for code violations, such as high grass, dating back to the 1970s. The fines have accrued 10 percent interest each year and...

Updated article; Newspaper admits estimated crowd at 500- 1000 ** New Pictures ** CORPUS CHRISTI — As protesters threw burlap sacks into Corpus Christi Bay Wednesday, the crowd chanted Rev-o-lu-tion, rev-o-lu-tion during a Tax Day Tea Party to protest what participants call out-of-control federal spending. The event was patterned after the Boston Tea Party tax protest that was among the events leading to the colonies break from British rule, but had some modern-day concessions. Unlike their revolutionary-era counterparts, a small band who protested under cover of darkness and in disguise, todays protesters numbered between 500 and 1,000 locally and were...

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS TEA PARTY APRIL 15, 2009 TV Video: http://www.kiiitv.com/news/local/43062387.html Corpus Christi Caller Times April 15, 2009 CORPUS CHRISTI — A growing crowd of more than 500 people gathered at the Lawrence Street T-Head Wednesday afternoon for a Tax Day Tea Party to protest what participants call out-of-control federal spending. Many people waved U.S. flags, wore shirts with Texas flags or carried signs with slogans including “Your mortgage is not my problem.” The protesters threw burlap sacks of tea into Corpus Christi Bay as a reference to the Boston Tea Party. The bags were on ropes so they could...

The Texas Department of Transportation made an announcement Tuesday that sounded like bad news for South Texas, but isn’t — its multibillion-dollar state infrastructure plan known as the Trans-Texas Corridor is dead. The key part of the plan for South Texas, known as I-69, is not. The state’s $180 billion plan, announced seven years ago, called for thousands of miles of 1,200-foot-wide traffic facilities to include toll roads for vehicles, rail for passengers and freight, and technology and power infrastructure such as fiber optic lines. Tuesday’s announcement by Texas Department of Transportation executive director Amadeo Saenz was a reaction to...

U.S. Highway 281 Presentation >> Priority 1: Spend $75 million to build five overpasses in Falfurrias.>> Priority 2: A $13 million Ben Bolt overpass at Farm-to-Market Road 2508 is proposed to create a safer school zone and eliminate another traffic barrier.>> Priority 3: Dedicate anywhere from $40 million to $104 million to build tolled relief route around Premont or upgrade the existing route with tolled freeway lanes.>> Priority 4: A $50 million project in George West to build connectors to U.S. Highway 59 and Interstate 37.McALLEN -- Whether the route is eventually called Interstate 69 or the Trans-Texas Corridor, four...

The Terrence McNally play, “Corpus Christi,” is currently being performed in Greenwich Village. The play depicts Jesus as an ordinary person who has sex with his apostles. In 1998, Catholic League president Bill Donohue led 2000 demonstrators in a protest against the play when it opened at the midtown Manhattan Theater. Because the play is not at a prominent location this time, the league has ignored it. However, Donohue is not ignoring what the New York Times has said about the play this past week: “If only the New York Times thought of Catholics as if we were all gay,...

The Texas Department of Transportation is asking Nueces County residents to attend a public meeting in Driscoll to comment and provide input on proposed upgrades of US 77 to a controlled access facility that meets interstate standards. The purpose of the meetings is to review proposed options for upgrading US 77 and to present recommendations, TxDOT officials said. The first round public meetings were held in early March. This second round of public meetings is being held as part of TxDOT's continued effort to gain public input on issues related to proposed improvements and to provide an opportunity for public...

In my recent letter to you concerning the TTC, I misquoted some information about the company known as Cintra. Mr. Patrick Rhodes of Cintra wrote in response to my mistake. Therefore, I stand corrected with the following: Fellow citizens, the company, Cintra, is not affiliated with ZAI-ACS. Cintra is partnered with Zachry on some TxDOT projects and ACS is partnered with Zachry on some other TxDOT projects. Therefore, I hope this clarifies the over-zealous statements in my letter. Cintra is a Spanish-owned company, and ACS is a larger Spanish-owned company. Zachry, a Texas company, is affiliated with each of them...

The Eucharist was stolen Friday from the tabernacle at Corpus Christi Cathedral on the 500 block of North Upper Broadway, police said. Corpus Christi Police Lt. Raymond Lara said the Eucharist, the consecrated bread used in Catholic Mass, was taken after someone entered the church through an open door. The exact time of the theft has not been determined and there have been no arrests made in the case, Lara said. Corpus Christi Cathedral officials would not comment when reached Monday.

AUSTIN — The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday selected San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and a Spanish toll road developer to plan a superhighway from Texarkana to Brownsville. The $5 million contract calls for Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure to create a financial plan for the Interstate 69 segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor. "This team represents the best in the balance of local and global expertise necessary to complete a project of this scope," said David Zachry, chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corp. The private developers' plan calls for seven new loops around Corpus Christi and other cities...

May 25, 2008                                  Solemnity of the                             Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ       Reading 1Responsorial PsalmReading 2Gospel Reading 1Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a Moses said to the people:"Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,has directed all your journeying in the desert,so as to test you by afflictionand find out whether or not it was your intentionto keep his commandments.He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,and then fed you with manna,a food unknown to you and your fathers,in order to show you that not by bread alone does one...

During the Holy Father’s Corpus Christi Mass, the Holy Father gave Communion only to people kneeling at a kneeler set up before him. This is a very interesting development. The Holy Father has been trying to provoke conversation and a rethinking of many practices, not very good innovations, that have become more or less standard.... In so many places it is simply accepted that Mass must be celebrated "facing the people", versus populum, instead of "facing God", ad orientem. So the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass in the Sistine Chapel, when he was also going to do something very much...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

Despite the uproar over the state's proposal to build Trans-Texas Corridor 69 through East Texas, Lufkin's mayor says he supports the highway — as long as it follows the path of the current U.S. Highway 59. The Trans Texas Corridor/I-69 project is a statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways and utility right-of-ways. Anyone wishing to comment on the proposed road can go online to www.keeptexasmoving.com. TxDOT has expanded its public comment period for TTC-69 to Friday, April 18. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Gorden, along with 17 other Texans, to an I-69...

South Texas is not only going to get its first interstate - it is also going to get a second and a third. State transportation officials knew one of three southern highways - U.S. Highway 281 in Hidalgo County, U.S. Highway 77 in Cameron County or U.S. Highway 59 in Webb County - would eventually become part of an interstate stretching from the Texas-Mexico border to Texarkana, in the northeast part of the state. Only Webb County is currently served by an interstate. The state's Trans-Texas Corridor plan calls for an Interstate 69 extension linking South Texas to points north,...

Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas. Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10. OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to...

Heated comments flew around the room as more than 175 citizens gathered to voice their opinions at the TxDOT open house and public hearing on the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor held at the Humble Civic Center on Feb. 28, 2008. Congress designated I-69 as a high priority corridor in 1991 and again in 1998. In 2002, TxDOT unveiled the Trans-Texas Corridor project to accommodate Texas' future transportation needs. The TTC is a part of a 4,000-mile system of rail lines, truck and car lanes and concentrated utility routes to improve international and intrastate movement of goods and people from Canada to the...

US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), 72, has represented the 14th District in Texas for 20 years, and while he has faced some serious Democratic challengers in the past, this year he is confronting a major battle in the Republican Primary. His opponent is Chris Peden, mayor pro tem of Friendswood. Whether or not the race is close is a matter of conjecture. No independent polls have been released and both camps claim their internal surveys show them with comfortable leads. Mark Elam, Paul’s congressional campaign manager, blogging on the Lone Star Times website, contends Paul is leading by about 60%...

AUSTIN - When it comes to road improvement and maintenance, by most accounts, the South Plains and Panhandle are fortunate. Despite a $1.1 billion accounting error, the Texas Department of Transportation recently reported no projects in the region have been canceled or delayed while cities like Dallas, Houston and Laredo had at least a half dozen highway projects delayed. But the $1.1 billion-error, which occurred because TxDOT inadvertently counted some bond money twice and consequently allocated more funding than it had, is just the latest problem plaguing the beleaguered agency. For months, TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz and other transportation...

TEXAS CITY — A massive superhighway that Texans have protested at public hearings statewide drew heated opposition among Galveston County residents, who said they feared the toll road would cripple the local shipping industry and do nothing to improve insufficient hurricane evacuation routes. The Trans-Texas Corridor would wind from Laredo to Corpus Christi, wrap around the western edge of Greater Houston, parallel Interstate 59 through East Texas and leave the state in Texarkana. But residents at a public hearing Thursday night in Texas City questioned the real purpose for the road, which would also be part of a national Interstate...

HOUSTON -- It did not take long Tuesday for the Texas Department of Transportation to find out what the Houstonians at a public hearing thought about the proposed 600-mile Trans-Texas Corridor, KPRC Local 2 reported. "George Washington, Sam Houston would vomit on you people," one attendee said. Chris Zora, who opposes the plan, attended the hearing at the Arabia Shrine Center in Southwest Houston. "I'd like to see a show of hands here of anybody that approves of this corridor," Zora said. "Is there anyone in this room who approves of this corridor? Raise your hands if you approve of...

Thousands waited outside the Flour Bluff entrance to Naval Air Station-Corpus Christie, expecting a confrontation with the members of the Westboro Baptist Church members, but they never came. The crowd instead showed support for U. S. Soldiers.

Homophobic Church Group to Picket Navy Air Station Members of a radical Kansas church who say God punished three Navy officers killed in the recent helicopter crash are planning to picket outside Naval Air Station-Corpus Christi. Members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church believe God punished the officers because of the sins of the nation. Picketing is set to start at noon Saturday at the main gate at SPID and NAS Drive in Flour Bluff. Church members are expected to carry signs that read "God Hates the Nation," and to thank God for the Jan. 16 helicopter crash that claimed...

BELLVILLE — In what is becoming a regular occurrence in Southeast Texas, more than 1,000 Austin County residents and interested outsiders jammed a county fairgrounds exhibit hall Monday night to let a panel of state transportation officials know that the Trans-Texas Corridor was not welcome here. State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, opened the public remarks to thunderous applause when she told the panel, "You all thought I was crazy in Austin when I said my people don't want it and I don't want it." The panel, which included Texas Department of Transportation Executive Director Amadeo Saenz and Deputy Executive Director...

Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor plan, and his advocacy of toll funding for future roads, hit the skids in a skeptical Legislature last spring. The road shows no signs of getting any smoother as state transportation officials try to sell the plan to Houston-area audiences. "This will wipe me out," Dee Bond told a panel of corridor advocates at a town hall meeting in Rosenberg last week. The panel, which included Texas Transportation Commissioner Ned Holmes of Houston and Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, was there to explain and gather comment on a...

When the Texas Department of Transportation begins work on the I-69/Trans Texas Corridor, the U.S. 77 leg from Victoria to Brownsville will be developed first. Cameron County Commissioners revealed the information during Tuesday’s Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting. County officials received the news from the state’s Turnpike Authority Division on Monday. In a letter to Cameron County, Turnpike Authority Division Director Phillip E. Russell said, TXDOT has identified U.S. 77 as “high priority� and the “first near term facility to be developed under the I-69/TTC Comprehensive Development Agreement.� The U.S. 77 Highway runs from Victoria to Brownsville. Precinct 3 Commissioner...

CORPUS CHRISTI — The family of a man who was shot by a Nueces County Sheriff’s deputy in June filed a wrongful death lawsuit last week against the county and the deputy. Deputy Burl Smith shot Miguel Angel Ramirez 10 times on June 7 after Ramirez, who was walking along Interstate 37 with an 18-inch machete, did not obey orders to drop the machete. A grand jury in July declined to indict Smith on any charges in connection with the shooting. The suit, filed by Ramirez’s parents, Cirilo Ramirez of Rosanky and Maria Guzman of Arlington, accuses the county of...

In deciding what to write for Corpus Christi Sunday, I concluded that nothing could improve on these words of Father Ragheed Ganni.“Mosul (Iraq) Christians are not theologians; some are even illiterate. And yet inside of us for many generations one truth has become embedded: Without the Sunday Eucharist we cannot live.“This is true today when evil has reached the point of destroying churches and killing Christians, something unheard of in Iraq till now. On June 2004 of last year, a group of young women was cleaning the church to get it ready for Sunday service. “My sister Raghad, who is...

Rome, Jun 8, 2007 / 09:03 am (CNA).- Christ’s incarnation and presence in the Eucharist “puts into crisis the wisdom of men”.  So the Pope spoke this past Thursday, at 7 p.m., on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi).  To mark the feast, Benedict XVI celebrated Mass in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, and afterwards presided over a Eucharistic Procession from St. John’s Basilica until the Basilica of Saint Mary Major.  The Pope greeted the Romans gathered there, together with the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, Mons. Camillo Ruini, and other cardinals and bishops...

Corpus Christi QuizLast November, the U.S. bishops prepared a document to increase knowledge and reverence for the Eucharist. These questions are taken from it. Source: Nov. 14’s ‘Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper: On Preparing to Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist’ available at USCCB.org.June 10-16, 2007 Issue | Posted 6/5/07 at 8:00 AM 1. What do we believe about holy Communion? 2. In what three ways are we united to Christ in Communion? 3. Who may receive holy Communion? 4. Should we ever refrain from receiving holy Communion? 5. How can we prepare to receive holy...

ROME (CNS) -- Before leading a Corpus Christi procession with the Eucharist through the streets of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI said the sacrament is essential nourishment for Christians walking through an often-hostile world. "For every Christian generation, the Eucharist is the indispensable nourishment that sustains them as they cross the desert of this world," he said in his June 7 homily for the feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. The world is "made arid by ideological and economic systems that do not promote life, but rather mortify it," he said during the Mass celebrated outside Rome's Basilica...

Stores in question are in Harlingen and Raymondville An employee who worked at two Rio Grande Valley Whataburger restaurants may have exposed customers to hepatitis A at specific periods in March, according to state health officials. The Texas Department of State Health Services issued a warning Tuesday to anyone who ate at the Harlingen restaurant at 1605 W. Harrison St. between March 1 and 12 and its Raymondville restaurant at 1007 E. Hidalgo Ave. between March 13 and March 31 to seek medical treatment for hepatitis A if experiencing symptoms. An employee working at both restaurants was diagnosed with the...

(April 3, 2007)—Gov. Rick Perry spoke out Tuesday against proposed legislation that would put a two-year moratorium on private toll road projects including the Trans-Texas Corridor and urged lawmakers to “ensure vital transportation projects continue as planned.� Several bills are pending in Austin aimed at putting the brakes on the massive highway project. State Representative Lois W. Kolkhorst of Brenham has filed a bill that would kill the project altogether and a second measure that calls for a two-year moratorium on allowing private entities from buying the rights to build and operate toll roads. During a visit with US Transportation...

HOUSTON — Rudy Giuliani's law firm has received $100,000 to $200,000 since 2005 to lobby Texas legislators on behalf of Citgo Petroleum Corp., a Houston-based oil company ultimately controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Records with the Texas Ethics Commission show that Shannon H. Ratliff II, an attorney with Bracewell & Giuliani of Houston has been registered to lobby the state legislature for Citgo since April 2005. But David McCollum, a spokesman for Citgo, said the company has had a lobbying contract with the law firm since before Giuliani joined and it was named Bracewell & Patterson. "I think the...

With a major interstate running right through our area traffic is a common topic for Central Texans. How do we solve the problem of more traffic on i-35? Is the Trans Texas Corridor a realistic solution and do we even need it? In part two of our Trans Texas Corridor series we look at the project from a needs angle. There are basically two sides to the Trans Texas Corridor project, those for it and those against. One thing both sides gree on is that something needs to be done. There are twenty one million Texas residents. 45 percent of...

HOUSTON -- The state's first convicted murderer to be tried under an obscure law designed to identify dangerous sexual predators will face strict treatment guidelines after his release from prison next year. Wesley Wayne Miller, 44, is nearing the end of a 25-year prison sentence for the 1982 murder of 18-year-old Retha Stratton, who was stabbed 38 times after refusing his sexual advances. In a recent civil trial under the Sexually Violent Predator Act, a Montgomery County jury decided that Miller fit the profile of someone who probably would commit the same crime again. When released from prison Sept. 30,...

14-year-old fires once, hits man in head Police said a 14-year-old boy was defending himself and his mother when he shot and killed an intruder Monday afternoon at their home on Ocean Drive. Capt. John Houston said the 14-year-old boy, whose name was not released, was home from school after becoming ill, and his 46-year-old mother, Rose Ann Kozlowski, had just returned from the grocery store when she was confronted by a man with a knife. Cmdr. Jesse Garcia confirmed during a news conference that police received a call from one of the residents of 4221 Ocean Drive at 12:55...

FLOUR BLUFF - A truck packed with 10 illegal immigrants pulled up to the Flour Bluff gate of Naval Air Station - Corpus Christi Saturday morning. They said they were lost. When a security officer told them to pull over, they took off. The truck driver drove through the security gate and left the truck near a vacant housing area. All 10 inside bailed out and started running. Security personnel quickly apprehended the seven men and three women. Base officials saud they don't think the illegals had any idea they were actually approaching a Navy base. "I think what happens...

Catholics don’t just go to church on Sunday, like other Christians.  They go to Mass.  Christmas, New Years, weddings, funerals.  It seems that we just can’t seem to do anything important without this ceremony which some regard as a sacrifice and others as a fellowship meal and still others as “the real presence.” So which is it–sacrifice, supper, or “real presence” and why the fixation upon it? Like most things in the New Testament, it is really impossible to understand this fully without some serious knowledge of what we now call the Old Testament. When I first read the account of Moses asking...

While I was pouring myself a hot cup of coffee in the rectory kitchen this past Monday morning, a priest friend who lives in the same rectory came through the kitchen, his face beaming with his characteristic joviality. "Come here," he said, "I need to show you something.” Father had just celebrated his birthday and he had bought himself a little present. As he carefully opened the box he looked at me with the anticipation of a small boy with a new toy and cheerfully said, “Look at this!” What he was showing me was a beautifully stitched corporal...

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of ChristPsalm: Sunday 26Reading 1Ex 24:3-8 When Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all answered with one voice, "We will do everything that the LORD has told us."  Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and, rising early the next day, he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls as peace...

Vatican City (www.kath.net/VIS) At 7 p.m. today, Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Benedict XVI celebrated Mass on the square in front of Rome's Basilica of St. John Lateran, then presided at the Eucharistic procession to the Basilica of St. Mary Major. In his homily, the Pope affirmed that the consecrated Host is the "food of the poor," and the "fruit of the earth and of the labor of mankind." And yet, he added, "bread is not simply our own product, something made by us; it is a fruit of the earth and, hence, a gift. ... It requires the synergy of...