Religious dreams in Africa face stark realities

COMSAM meets for its second general assembly
KAMPALA, UGANDA -- As a gathering of Catholic religious leaders began its first full day of deliberations here they found themselves caught between their dreams and harsh realities that could very well overwhelm those dreams. Hope and good intentions run up against quite modest resources in Africa.
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'Let it begin with me': Parishioners work for peace in Juárez

By Joseph J. Kolb, Catholic News Service
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO -- In a city that has become synonymous with violence and despair during a four-year drug war that has claimed more than 12,000 residents, parishioners at a small church are trying to change the image of Ciudad Juárez -- one person at a time.
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Uganda cardinal to religious: 'rise up to Africa's suffering'

KAMPALA, UGANDA -- The retired Archbishop of Kampala, Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, Feb. 5, addressing an African religious delegation at a high mass in the in the Sacred Heart cathedral here, encouraged them to carry on with their work with the marginalized of the continent.
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Ruling on 'ministerial exception' has limits

Protestant church-vs.-state case lacks nuance found in Catholic structures
By Nicholas P. Carfardi
The Supreme Court of the United States, in its Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC opinion, upheld the “ministerial exception” that the U.S. circuit courts had long recognized. Basically, this exception states that churches cannot be sued over employment decisions regarding those whom the church hires to “preach their beliefs, teach their faith and carry out their mission.”
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Church's ban on contraception starves families and damages ecosystem

By Jamie L Manson
Jamie L Manson
Editor's note: Starting this week, Jamie Manson's column, Grace on the Margins, will be posted on Mondays. As the battle over contraception coverage raged in our national debate last week, a small report on "PBS NewsHour" demonstrated the devastating effects that the Catholic church's ban on contraception has on poor nations.
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Catholics silent on football risks

While studies raise alarm about long-term effects of repeated blows to head, there is little discussion of ethics
By Ken Briggs
Growing scientific evidence that football players can suffer permanent mental disease has so far stirred no broad discussion among Catholic colleges and high schools or national church organizations about the ethics of continuing to sponsor the game.
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Curial horror greeted John XXIII's announcement of ecumenical council

By Desmond Fisher
Wednesday, the Catholic church should have celebrated -- but didn't -- an important anniversary, the day 53 years ago when Pope John XXIII invited 18 Curia cardinals to accompany him to a ceremony at St. Paul Outside the Walls. It was the feast day of St. Paul, who is believed to have been executed in Rome about 67 A.D. and buried where the basilica named after him now stands.
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Victims caught up in Milwaukee's 'shell game'

Archdiocese's move to shield cemetery assets pits the living against the dead
Dead Catholics have a vested interest in reducing settlements to clergy abuse survivors in Milwaukee, thanks to a shift of $55.6 million on the church balance sheets by then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan in 2008. Dolan’s move in the twilight of his seven-year tenure in Milwaukee has emerged as a major issue in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy, which his successor, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, filed last February. One expert who has done extensive research on diocesan financial statements has described the move as “a shell game.”
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The 'schoolboys' have no real authority

Old certainties and new realities
By Norbert F. Dlabal
In the very early years of the 20th century, my dad attended primary school in a one-room country grade school on the plains of central Kansas. Conditions were still very rustic on the frontier in those days. They had just the basics. There were no phones, no electric lights and no indoor plumbing. The roads were of dirt, and the law was miles away. One teacher taught all eight grades and had to be a fairly tough and self-sufficient individual.
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Deported wife's absence shadowed ordination

By Eloísa Pérez-Lozano
MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA -- March 2009. That was the last time Felix Hernandez saw his wife, Cynthia, in the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement picked her up during a raid at her workplace, the former Swift & Company, a meat-processing plant in Marshalltown, for working without documentation. She was deported to Mexico and has been there since.
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Catholics denounce ruling on religious exemption

By NCR Staff
WASHINGTON -- Religious groups -- notably the U.S. Catholic bishops -- felt rebuffed by the Obama administration’s decision not to change a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires employers to offer contraceptive services in their health care packages without charging copays, coinsurance or deductibles.
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Seismic shifts reshape US Catholicism

Archbishop Charles Chaput’s announcement Jan. 6 that the Philadelphia archdiocese will be closing schools in record numbers during the coming year (see story) was the latest and loudest rumble in a series of seismic displacements that are permanently reshaping the look of U.S. Catholicism.
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