Last-ditch effort to dump Mass translations

WASHINGTON -- Bishop Donald W. Trautman is calling for a last-minute measure by the U.S. bishops this month to save American Catholics from new Mass prayers full of grammatical errors and unproclaimable texts. The bishops are set to approve the last four segments of a new U.S. English translation of the Roman Missal at their annual fall meeting Nov. 16-19. Trautman, the bishop of Erie, Pa., is urging the bishops to reject at least one of these segments, he told NCR Oct. 30.
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Dearly beloved, we are gathered

The Mass is the chance to hear our true names spoken
By Melissa Musick Nussbaum
“What name do you give your child?” This is the first question of the baptismal rite. Before we ask about faith, before we speak of the duties of parents and godparents, we ask for the child’s name. No one goes into the waters of baptism anonymously. No strangers enter the font. No aliens are anointed with sweet-smelling oil and robed in white garments. The child who is baptized has a name.
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Victory over same-sex marriage comes at high price

Catholics divided by hard fought campaign
By Chuck Colbert
Analysis After a campaign that saw significant Catholic activism on both sides of the issue, Maine voters rejected , 53 percent to 47 percent, a law that would have allowed same-sex marriages. But in Washington state, a referendum to uphold a law granting same-sex domestic partners the same rights as married spouses was narrowly approved, 51 percent to 49 percent.
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Stonehill symposium played role in women religious study

Conservative religious figures featured at the gathering in Easton. Mass.
(Updated Nov. 5) Cardinal Fran Rodé said the apostolic visitation of U.S. women religious is a response to “concerns expressed by American Catholics about the welfare of religious women and consecrated life in general.” He said he had been considering convoking an apostolic visitation before he traveled to the U.S. for the symposium on religious life at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass and the symposium nudged him forward.
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Benedict's ongoing battle against secularism

By John L Allen Jr
John L Allen Jr
Much has been made lately of Pope Benedict XVI's apparent lenience for "cafeteria Catholicism" on the right. Two developments have fed the perception: talks between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X, the "Lefebvrites," who broke with Rome in protest of liberalizing currents after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65); and new structures to allow Anglicans to become Catholic while preserving their heritage, with the most likely takers being conservative Anglicans opposed to homosexuality and women's ordination.
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Stonehill symposium played role in women religious study

Conservative religious figures featured at the gathering in Easton. Mass.
(Updated Nov. 5) Cardinal Fran Rodé said the apostolic visitation of U.S. women religious is a response to “concerns expressed by American Catholics about the welfare of religious women and consecrated life in general.” He said he had been considering convoking an apostolic visitation before he traveled to the U.S. for the symposium on religious life at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass and the symposium nudged him forward.
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Those Vatican II priests

Vatican II priests: fighting the good fight to the end
By Pat Marrin
Religious Life -- Analysis As the church marks “The Year of the Priest” from June 2009 to June 2010, it is worth noting that a whole generation of extraordinary priests is now passing from the scene into retirement or final rest.
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A tightrope act of faith and doubt

By Teresa Malcolm
It’s not often Shakespeare comes to mind while watching a horror TV show, but there I was, watching the premiere of the fifth season of “Supernatural,” and being inexorably reminded of a line from “King Lear”: “Like flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;/They kill us for their sport.” In this case, the “gods” are the arrayed forces of heaven and hell, angels and demons poised on the edge of cataclysmic cosmic war, with humans in the middle, collateral damage or, at best, hapless tools.
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Subsidizing poor eating habits

Why does a salad cost more than a burger?
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine posted on its Web site an easy-to-understand visual that shows which foods U.S. tax dollars go to support under the nation’s recently passed 2008 Farm Bill. Titled “Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac?” it depicts two pyramids -- subsidized foods together with the recommended food pyramid for optimum nutrition and health.
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'Toxic politics' prevent immigration reform

WASHINGTON -- "A toxic political atmosphere" is preventing much-needed humane reform of the "broken immigration system" in the United States, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick said Nov. 3 at a forum on immigration and human dignity at Georgetown University. Calling for "comprehensive immigration reform,' the retired Washington archbishop said, "We have to change what is broken, lest more people will suffer. We have to be courageous and persistent and change the system."
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On marriage, the bishops should start over

An NCR Editorial
When the U.S. bishops meet next month in Baltimore they should scrap the entire text of the proposed pastoral letter on marriage and start fresh (see related story). The primary problem with the draft, obtained by NCR and available for viewing on our Web site (read the draft pastoral here), is that it is not, as advertised, pastoral.
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Women may come out winners in the Synod for Africa

Bishops called for a more collaborative style of decision-making
By John L. Allen Jr.
If there's one big idea that seemed to surface at the nearly monthlong Synod for Africa in Rome, it was a call to take women more seriously -- in society, and also in the church. In keeping with the candor exhibited throughout the synod about the church's need to confront its own failures, the bishops called for, among other things, new structures to foster decision-making authority by women in the church.
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