Thus begins Dr. Patrick Whelan's discussion of a study of the Massachusetts health insurance program, Commonwealth Care, upon which the Senate's health care reform bill draws. The study was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine

Whelan's conclusion: "The recent experience in Massachusetts suggests that universal health care coverage has been associated with a decrease in the number of abortions performed."

Read more.

Whelan is on the pediatrics faculty at Harvard Medical School and is a pediatric rheumatology specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston. He is also a member of the NCR board of directors.

Barbara Blaine of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) writes on the Ms.Blog the church should not be allowed to conduct an investigation into sex abuse allegations by clergy. She says church investigators can't be trusted.

Read More.

Catholics and health care reform came up during the press corps briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today:

Hat tip to OSV for this one. NCR didn't receive the media alert notice.

The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, which represents about 10,000 U.S. women religions, issued the statement yesterday. It is also on their Web site: Important message from Mother Mary Quentin regarding the health care proposal

Recommended reading: The New York Times' "Room for Debate: A running commentary on the news" blog has a must read series of articles, Changing the Vatican’s Response to Abuse, about the clergy sex abuse crisis. NCR has been dogging this story since the mid-1980s. With attention focused squarely on the highest levels of church structures, I think it is fair to say that this crisis has entered a new phase.

Regular NCR readers will recognize all the people the Times asked to write on the topic. Our senior correspondent, John L. Allen Jr., is there, as is our Young Voices columnist Nicole Sotelo. Nicholas Cafardi has written commentary for us before, and David Gibson has written for us too. I am not sure if David Clohessy has ever actually written for us -- I'll have to check the archives -- but he has been a news source innumerable times.

Here's a media statement from Network:

Joe Winter, who writes for NCR on occasion from Wisconsin and Minnesota, sent the following this morning.

Read more here: Bleidorn wanted to serve all people

Dublin archbishop: Catholic Church must tell truth

Pope Hopes Irish Abuse Letter Will Heal Wounds

What next for scandal hit Catholic church?

Catholic Bishops Renew Criticism of Abortion Restrictions

German bishop surprised at number of abuse cases

Sex scandal embroils Catholic Church in Brazil

Pope meets German bishop over abuse scandal

Mexico City hosts nation's first gay marriages

Pope Denies Vatican Seeks to End Priestly Celibacy in 50 Years

Is abortion your moral bottom line on health reform?

Will Stupak and the Catholic Bishops Kill Health-Care Reform?

2 named assistant bishops of growing Dallas Diocese

Judge Kevin Fine of Harris County, Texas, shook the Texas judicial world last week when he declared that the death penalty as applied in Texas is unconstitutional. He was immediately attacked by Texas Governor Rick Perry, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos as partaking in judicial activism.

Harris County sends more inmates to death row than any other county in the nation.

Now news comes that Fine has rescinded that ruling. "Rescinded" may not be the best word to use. He is holding the ruling in abeyance until he hears more arguments on the matter. He has scheduled a hearing on the matter for next month.

While I was looking for something else, I found this over on the web site of the Catholic Times of Springfield, Ill. The headline caught my attention, and as a lover of fish, I have to confess this question has crossed my mind many times during many Lents: Do no-meat Lenten Fridays count less if you like fish?

And if you saw the line to my parish's Knights of Columbus Friday night fish fry winding out the gymnasium door, up the stairs and down the hall, you too would have to wonder: Is this really a sacrifice?

Did you see this story from Catholic News Service: Homilies should be under eight minutes long? Don't overtax parishioners' attention spans, is the message from Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, who has just written a book, The Word of God, which is chock-full of tips Eterovic gleaned from the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Bible.

Bill TammeusI wonder what Bill Tammeus would say to this advice. Kansas City-based NCR staff have been reading Bill's work on the religion pages of The Kansas City Star for years. Today Bill joins us as an NCR contributor. His columns will appear on the Web site about every other week or so.

His first offering looks at getting the proper balance between preaching and Eucharist. See Balancing the right and left brains at worship.

Bill's an active, practicing Presbyterian, so we welcome his bringing a bit of balance to our Catholic-centric site.

Welcome Bill!

Vatican forced to defend itself over abuse cases

Pope's brother praised for his apology to victims/strong>

Archdiocese defends decision to deny children because of lesbian parents

Catholic leaders seek 'equal treatment' on tax rebate

Bishops asks actors not to push for condom use

UK Churches Oppose Mosque Plan

Lisa Miller, religion editor for Newsweek, has a quite good analysis of "a new generation" (her characterization) of Catholic bishops and how they play politics. She offers little new for frequent readers of NCR, but her take is valuable for its succinctness.

Read the full piece: A new generation gets righteous

One thing Miller reveals is just how tight the U.S. bishops' staff was with:

Feedback from Oprah appearance 'overwhelmingly positive' for Dominican sisters

Groups protest decision not to re-enroll child of lesbians

National government, religious groups join battle over Boulder church growth plan

Biden says there is a 'moment of opportunity' for peace

Supreme Court to rule on anti-gay protests at military funerals

Parents question Baltimore archdiocese over Catholic school closures

Did you see that a story from Catholic News Service this afternoon says that the the five-member apostolic visitation team investigating the Legionaries of Christ because of the sexual abuse allegations against the order's founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, is expected to submit its findings to the Vatican this month.

Stay tuned.

Visitors to this site have not doubt seen suggestions that churches should lose their tax exempt status, especially when church leaders make political prouncements. Well, it looks like one state may try it: Kansas wants sales tax from religious nonprofits.

Anyone who has looked at a state budget recently though sees this as an economic move and not particularly ideological. Kansas is looking at nearly a $500 million budget shortfall next fiscal year, and the bill in question also removes the sales tax exemption for residential utilities, lottery tickets, some recreational fees, public libraries and several other categories.

Proponents of the bill say it will net an additional $169 million a year.

Several NCR staff members have received the following "letter to Mother Millea" in e-mails. The people sending them have urged us to put this online. What they apparently did not know is that this "letter" started with us online!

It first appeared as a comment on the story Apostolic Visitator details on-site visit guidelines (Look for it about half way down the second page of comments.)

But as a service to readers, we reprint it here:

This weekend witnessed a beautiful example of what can happen when international cooperation works well. Millions of people benefit.

I heard it on a BBC broadcast:

This particular report did not mention how Catholic groups, dioceses and parishes were involved, but you can just about bet they were. Anyone know about Catholic participation in these program?

Not all of the closing Catholic schools were in financial trouble

Boulder, Colo., Catholic school boots student with gay parents

Protest Planned at Boulder Catholic School

German Catholics want pope to talk about alleged abuse cases

Jesuit wants latest encyclical to spark social transformation

Cardinal Levada explains Vatican's unity push

Cardinal Levada present at Traditionalist seminary chapel consecration in Lincoln, Nebr.

John Allen begins his analysis of the clergy sexual abuse scandal unfolding in Germany this way: "In James Joyce’s Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus famously describes history as 'a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.' "

I don't know the Spanish translation for "a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" but I bet the Legionaries of Christ in Mexico do: More abuse allegations against Maciel surface in Mexico

Here are the top, most-viewed pages on NCRonline.org in February.

As Michael Sean Winters reported last week, the U.S. bishops' conference sub-committee on the church in Latin America established a special advisory committee to assess the on-going relief work in Haiti following the Jan. 12 earthquake.

As part of the effort, Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of San Antonio is leading a group representing the conference to Haiti Monday through Wednesday. Here are some photos from that trip.

The general election in Britain is turning -- unexpectedly -- into a tight race, according to an article in today's Wall Street Journal. David Cameron's Conservative Party has had a substantial lead over the U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ruling Labour Party, but the latest polls show that lead dwindling.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the British press was reporting that the Catholic bishops would be releasing an election guide that The Times of London said would "take a line that is economically to the left of centre but conservative on social issues such as marriage, education and care for the elderly."

The Telegraph called the 10-page document titled, "Choosing the Common Good," an endorsement of the Tories (i.e., the Conservative Party).

In November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a revised ethical and religious directive. It states in part that Catholic health facilities have “an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally.”

A Tulsa hospital is learning how this directives may play out: Catholic directive may thwart end-of-life wishes Bishops cite 'obligation’ for using feeding tubes at religious facilities

Tip 'o the hat to the Religion News service blog for this one:

A church hiring journalists to investigate a newspaper?

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported on Monday that the Church of Scientology has hired three prize-winning journalist to go sleuthing in the St. Pete Times after the paper published a scathing multi-part series on the religion's leaders last summer.

Neil Brown, the Times' executive editor, told Kurtz that he "couldn't take this request very seriously because its a study bought and paid for by the Church of Scientology."

Brown also said that he's "surprised and disappointed that journalists who I understand to have an extensive background in investigative reporting would think it's appropriate to ask me or our news organization to talk about that reporting while (a) it's ongoing, and (b) while they're being paid to ask these questions by the very subjects of our reporting."

Read more here.

Like many other places, I am sure, our office TV is set on the White House Health Care Summit. As the president and congressional leaders jockey for position, CNN has very interesting polling data:

It seems to me that the bottom line is that the majority of Americans want the health care system reformed. That really is the consensus.

The desire for reform has been thwarted by partisan politics. That is what this summit has to overcome, but at noon central time, there isn't much evidence that is happening. At least not on TV.

The Associated Press is reporting that German prosecutors have opened investigations into allegations of sexual abuse at two Roman Catholic schools - the first legal action since reports of priests abusing students surfaced in January.

Read more here: Germans investigate Catholic school sex abuse

Latin Mass at the National Shrine in April

First such Mass at the shrine in nearly 45 years

If you haven't yet settled on a way to mark the fifth anniversary of the pontificate Benedict XVI, and if you're in the Washington, D.C., area, you may want to check this out.

The Paulus Institute, whose raison d'être is "for the propagation of sacred liturgy," announced today "the fifth anniversary of inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI will be commemorated in the Great Upper Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington D.C. by a Pontifical Solemn High Mass in the 'Extraordinary form' -- commonly known as the 'Traditional Latin Mass' or the 'Tridentine Mass.' "

The Mass will be celebrated by Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the president emeritus of the Vatican's Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

The date: Saturday, April 24, at 1 p.m.

A week ago, I asked readers to join the NCR Facebook Fan page and push us over the 2,000 fan mark.

And the readers responded. I checked this morning and we were at 2,091 fans. You can check it out here: NCR on Facebook

Now we need to focus on our Twitter feed. This morning we had 979 followers. Can be bump that over a thousand this week? If you don't tweet, check this: twitter.com/NCRonline.