TULITA, N.W.T. — On the edge of turning 22, Chad Bonnatrouge doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, hasn't touched drugs, lives with his grandparents and sticks to himself. He graduated from high school in Tulita a couple of years ago and is uncertain what his next move should be.

He's got family in Vancouver and they have invited him to join them. He's been there once and is unsure whether he wants to go back. For now he stacks firewood and fetches groceries for his grandparents.

DENVER — Supreme Knight Carl Anderson announced Aug. 2 that the Knights of Columbus will purchase the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington.

Anderson, delivering his annual report, said that over the next year, the fraternal organization will build a shrine to Blessed John Paul and put up related exhibits on the property.

"An undertaking of immense consequence and promise."

This is how the Holy Father described World Youth Day in his farewell address just prior to his return flight to Rome. This endeavour of enormous import is, precisely, "that of helping young people to become more deeply rooted in Jesus Christ."

MADRID — Hours after firefighters doused overheated pilgrims with much-needed jets of water, the heavens added to their efforts by driving rain and wind onto the more than one million young Catholics camping at Cuatro Vientos airbase for the World Youth Day vigil.

But the rain did not dampen the spirits of the pilgrims, who sang and chanted all the louder for Pope Benedict, who entered the airbase to cheers and applause.

Erwin Fung has been to World Youth Day four times. He went to Paris in 1997, Toronto in 2002, Germany in 2005 and Australia in 2008.

"It's hard to describe the feeling that you get when you're with so many other hundreds of thousands of Catholic young people," said Fung. "It's truly amazing what can bring us together.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, ITALY — Getting off the grid and leaving behind the city is a great way to bring some much-needed silence to one's life, Pope Benedict said.

"Silence is the condition of one's surroundings that best fosters contemplation, listening to God and meditation," he said Aug. 10 at his weekly general audience.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, ITALY — Most people don't leave any time in their day to stop, listen and reflect on what God is doing and saying in their lives, Pope Benedict said.

"Our time is taken up by so many activities, commitments, worries and problems that often one tends to fill up one's whole day without having a second left for stopping to reflect and nourish one's spiritual life" by having contact with God, he said Aug. 17.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, ITALY - When Jesus fed the multitudes by miraculously multiplying loaves and fishes, he gave his disciples an example to follow, Pope Benedict said.

Commenting on the Sunday Gospel passage July 31, the pope said it was natural to read the story of Jesus' miracle and think of "our many brothers and sisters who, in these days, in the Horn of Africa, suffer from famine aggravated by war and the lack of solid institutions."

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — While there's nothing wrong with a bit of light reading in the summer, reading a book or two of the Bible also can be a relaxing - as well as enlightening — vacation activity, Pope Benedict said.

"Naturally, many of the books of literature we pick up during vacation are for a diversion, and this is normal," he said Aug. 3 at his weekly general audience.

NEW ORLEANS - Just as Moses descended from Mount Sinai with Ten Commandments chiselled on two stone tablets, the rules laid out for potent peaching while not etched in permanent marker, are boundaries worthy of respect: six to eight minutes for a Sunday homily, three to five minutes for a weekday sermon.

"The idea is not so much 'brevity' as it is not taking longer than you need," said Deborah Wilhelm, a doctoral student with a focus on preaching at the Aquinas Institute of Theology, who led a recent eight-day workshop on preaching here.