MEDIA COVERAGE

News: “A Wish For Peace”
From the San Antonio Express-News, January 31, 2023 Peace laureate Rosalyn Falcon Collier speaks during the 18th annual Blessing of the Peacemakers on Sunday afternoon at the Palmetto Center for the Arts Theater at Northwest Vista College. The Blessing of the...

NEWS: Ayala: San Antonio will gift a compassion ‘how-to’ for use by nation’s cities
San Antonio Express-News, 27 January, 2023 SAN ANTONIO — Mayor Ron Nirenberg went to the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., last week with a gift — or at least the promise of a gift — from San Antonio to its fellow cities. Though he’ll deliver the...

Charter seeks to build on Golden Rule
San Antonio Express-News, October 9, 2022 BELIEF by Julie Brenton Rowe As fewer people identify as Christian in this country and the number of Nones and Dones grows, there is much out there about what is wrong with organized religion; it makes us blind to what is...

Ayala: San Antonio-born scholar offers a meditation in new book, ‘The Light We Give’ on Sikh wisdom
September 1, 2022 Simran Jeet Singh’s number still begins with 210. It was comforting though surprising given the New York-based scholar, philosopher and writer has kept it years after moving to New York City. It’s a way the San Antonio-born self-described...

NEWS – Ayala: San Antonio blessed with a peace laureate that feeds the hungry
Sunday’s Blessing of the Peacemakers began with a review of peace initiatives by a San Antonian long involved in those efforts. The Rev. Ann Helmke didn’t speak long but she ticked off a timeline that I wanted to slow down. t was history deserving of its own award....

OP-Ed- “Plant and nurture the seeds of peace”
by Rosalyn Falcon Collier Express-News, 23 January, 2021 Since 2006, the peaceCENTER has celebrated San Antonio’s peacemakers with a Blessing of the Peacemakers, held the last Sunday of January to dovetail with the start of the internationally recognized Season for...

NEWS: Commentary: How we can harness, share compassion
From the San Antonio Express-News, 26 November, 2020 By Dennis Slattery The word “compassion” entered the fringes of social discourse years ago and has now moved closer to the center of discussion for many. Etymologically, its history reaches back to ancient periods....

NEWS: Ayala: San Antonio becomes first city to develop ‘compassionistas’
Elaine Ayala, San Antonio Express-News, September 12, 2020 A hint of fall this week gave us a reprieve, however temporary, from a summer that was long and hot and steeped in shared stress. No one in the United States was spared the effects of a mismanaged pandemic, a...

NEWS: Essential services — Worship has evolved amid the disruption of COVID-19, minister says
By Peggy O’Hare STAFF WRITER San Antonio Express-News, 10 May, 2020, page H1 The Rev. Ann Helmke, a Lutheran minister who serves as the city’s liaison to its faith-based communities, discusses how churches and temples can best meet the needs of their congregations and...

COMMENTARY: On other side of this crisis, what will humanity be?
By Ann Helmke FOR THE EXPRESS-NEWS May 9, 2020 page A13 Who are we in the midst of COVID-19? Sometimes I find myself imagining the God’s eye view of our human movement during these surreal times. The image is daunting and more than the eye of my heart can take in...