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There has been quite a bit of activity and comment in Australia over the past few months on issues of bioethics and the Church.  A couple of recent notes: The Australian government has set up a pregnancy-counseling hotline and Catholic groups are involved – raising the ire of abortion rights advocates and questions about Church…

Bishop Olmstead of Phoenix: In a small, bare-walled room at the Maricopa County’s Durango Jail, more than 40 prisoners celebrated God becoming man at a Mass with Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted Dec. 25. “God changed history not by being far from us, but by doing what seemed impossible,” the bishop said in his bilingual homily.…

…just a reminder of this excellent streaming radio station. Website here. They also have a discussion forum here. Sample playlist, at this writing: John Rutter; The Cambridge Singers – Motet: In manus tuas Domine, for 4 Voices [4:08] – Stillness & Sweet Harmony Cambridge Singers â?¢ Collegium: 502 [DDD] Peter Philips; The Tallis Scholars –…

Two major points of discussion have arisen from recent events in Poland. First, obviously, the situation of the Church under the Communist regime. Secondly is the selection and vetting of bishops. (Sidebar: remember Wielgus was already a bishop before the most recent appointment. He had been ordained bishop – of Plock  – in 1999.) The…

…about ad orientem in Anglican/Episcopal and Lutheran churches. I know that it is not infrequently used, particularly in High Church Anglicanism. I was doing an idle (procrastinating) search for images and was rather surprised by the numer of images for altars in Lutheran churches that came up that clearly looked as if they were set…

David Delaney writes: Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s Cause for Canonization has been moving forward quite well lately. I hear that it appears that the miracle needed for his beatification will be found among those which have been pouring in recently (one of them, which I believe may already have been verified, was from a woman from…

The General Audience: Evoking the story of the first martyr, Benedict XVI first of all drew attention to the fact that he is linked to the institution of the diaconate, “a term however absent in the Acts of the Apostles” that instead speak of the first martyr. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, continued…

John Allen reports on an address given by Bishop Trautman of Erie, chair of the USCCB Committee on liturgy. The address was to the Catholic Academy of Liturgy. According to a press release issued by a member of the academy’s Executive Committee, Jesuit Fr. Keith Pecklers of Rome’s Gregorian University, Trautman “contended that the new…

France, first: Barely half the French population describe themselves as Catholic, according to a poll released yesterday, sparking a leading religious publication to declare France "no longer a Catholic country". A poll published in Le Monde des Religions yesterday showed the number of self-declared French Catholics had dropped from 80 per cent in the early…

Screen all preborn babies for Downs’, doctors say: For decades, pregnant women 35 and older have routinely been tested for chromosomal abnormalities that might affect their fetus, most notably Down syndrome. Younger women were tested much less often because the risk of birth defects was low and invasive procedures like amniocentesis carried risks of their…
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