NCR Today

In his Washington Post column today, EJ Dionne discusses the public disagreement among the U.S. bishops about the lawsuit challenging the contraception mandate in the Obama administration's health care law. Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., went public Tuesday in an interview with Kevin Clarke of America magazine. He expressed his concern that some groups "very far to the right" are turning the controversy over the contraception rules into "an anti-Obama campaign."

Blaire smells, quite rightly I think, the aroma of partisan politics in this lawsuit, and perhaps in the whole campaign about "religious freedom." At the very least, it can be used by the far right to try to defeat Obama.

It took more than 800 years for the church to formally canonize Hildegard of Bingen. Her elevation by Pope Benedict XVI was announced May 1 at the Vatican. The 12th-century German Benedictine abbess and mystic has been venerated for centuries by Christians, but the delay in her official recognition could have had something to do with her very unorthodox kind of sanctity.

At a time when two ecumenical councils were dissolving the marriages of all priests and cutting adrift their wives and children, Hildegard was proclaiming the special dignity of women in her speeches, books and music. She was, in fact, so far ahead of her time that she was neither understood nor taken seriously by the hierarchy, thereby avoiding for most of her life sanction or investigation. Here are a few of her positions on scripture and theology.

There exists in the inner being of God an almost erotic balance of feminine and masculine, which is mirrored in the complementary relationship of men and women.

Since Jesus took his body from a woman, it is woman rather than man who best represents the humanity of the Son of God.

Here’s a story for critics of clergy sex abuse court cases who say “they’re only after the money.” From the Green Bay Press Gazette:

Cleveland Catholics demand Lennon reopen parish immediately

Philadephia -- Msgr. William J. Lynn took the witness stand at his landmark trial Wednesday, asserting he "did my best" to weed out sexually abusive priests. During hours of tense testimony, Lynn tried to counter charges that he spent a dozen years burying sex-abuse claims and shuffling accused priests around the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Philadephia -- Philadelphia Priest Takes Stand In His Own Defense At Child Sex Abuse Trial (Video)

Opinion: Is Catholic groups’ lawsuit against health law political?

Corpus Christi Parish in San Francisco's ethnically rich Excelsior District is spearheading community solidarity efforts to expose and combat the neighborhood's ongoing violence.

Largely with the guidance of associate pastor Salesian Fr. Jose Lucero and with the cooperation of the San Francisco Organizing Project, a communitywide gathering will be held at 11 a.m. June 16 as a follow-up to a May 9 interfaith prayer vigil for healing and peace in the parish hall that drew more than 70 participants, the priest told NCR on Monday.

"We should not have to walk in our streets paranoid. We are not going to stand for this violence. We are going to do something about it," Lucero told Catholic San Francisco, the archdiocese's weekly, in a May 18 article.

He said the meetings are opportunities "for us to speak, to not live in fear" and that "prayer is the most important way we can get rid of violence."

"This neighborhood in general has been affected by violence in different ways," Lucero told vigil participants, Catholic San Francisco reports.

A nation-by-nation look at Arab Spring's progress

SETI Astronomer Jill Tarter Retiring After 35-Year Alien Hunt

Nuclear talks begin in Baghdad, a day after U.N. watchdog says deal with Iran is near

' Thousands of pages of confidential files for nine Franciscan friars accused of molestation tell the story of systemic abuse with the Roman Catholic religious order dating back decades. More than 4,000 pages of confidential files were obtained by The Associated Press before they are to be made public Wednesday.

The Associated Press' Nicole Winfield is reporting from Vatican City this morning that the "head of the embattled Legion of Christ religious order admitted Tuesday to covering up news that his most prominent priest had fathered a child and announced a review of all past allegations of sexual abuse against Legion priests amid a growing scandal at the order."

Read the full story.

Notre Dame may falter on the gridiron but it's second to none in playing political football.

The university's announcement, with great fanfare, that it will join a suit against the Obama administration's modified policy that allows employees to obtain contraception without requiring Catholic institutions to foot the bill for it is the latest offensive.

Notre Dame and the others claim they would be forced to endorse practices that violate Catholic teaching even though the insurance companies themselves have agreed to pay for it. Presumably, they object to letting even non-Catholic employees simply process their claims on university forms.

University president John Jenkins denies this has anything to do with access to contraception. He echoes the "religious freedom" cry that argues that the Obama accommodation still ropes Catholic colleges into encouraging the very things the church abhors. Really.

My colleague, Michael Sean Winters, offers a critique of Archbishop William Lori's installation Mass homily, concludes that it was "bizarre" and ends his analysis: "The first reading yesterday was from Acts, recounting Paul's visit to Athens, and Lori used that as a metaphor for his own role, but instead of preaching Christi crucified and risen as Paul did, Lori preached Neo-con Constitutional Theory 101."

In 1972, the new archbishop of Cincinnati, Joseph Bernardin, centered his installation Mass homily on the Eucharist as the moral imperative for the life of the church and her members individually.