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The latest to “rebel” against mandatory resignation at 75 years of age is Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and, until last year, President of the American Conference of Bishops. From the beginning of his pontificate, Benedict XVI has come under some pressure to abolish the rule established by Paul VI on the retirement age for ecclesiastics. So while most Western governments are grappling with the protests of citizens required by the exigencies of public finances to stay at work longer, the Roman Curia is receiving opposite signals from the Sacred College. Despite the prominent appeals that have rained down...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is urging members of the House of Representatives to “find effective ways to assure continuing Unemployment Insurance and Emergency Unemployment Compensation to protect jobless workers and their families.” The House is considering a measure that would the reduce the duration of unemployment benefits from a maximum of 99 weeks to 59 weeks. “When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families,” said Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice...

The archbishop of Los Angeles is among a group of Latino bishops from throughout the US to have called for undocumented immigrants to be seen as a "revitalizing force" -- instead of as criminals. The group of 30, including Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez, released a joint letter vowing to work for immigration law reform, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. [SNIP] "The lack of a just, humane and effective reform of immigration laws negatively affects the common good of the United States. We promise to keep working to bring about this change."

What seemed at first glance to be a fairly straightforward report on the increase in lobbying efforts by religious groups has turned into quite a complicated ordeal.As I wrote last week, the U.S. bishops' conference had disputed a report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life about religious advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. which stated that the U.S. bishops spend upwards of $26 million each year on advocacy efforts. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, media director for the USCCB, took Pew researchers to task for the numbers they came up with and for what seemed like a broad definition...

With all due respect, Pope Benedict XVI either lives in an alternate reality or needs better PR handlers. His comments over the weekend to U.S. bishops about the sex abuse of children showed a continued disconnect with the church’s mishandling of this ongoing scandal. The pope referenced the church’s “conscientious effort” to confront sex abuse by priests. Uh? Perhaps the pope meant to say conscientious cover-up. No institution has done more to deny and downplay the sexual abuse of young boys than the Catholic Church. No institution has done more to discredit victims and protect pedophile priests than the Catholic...

Christopher Manion This past September, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, President of the USCCB, sent President Obama a letter that was long overdue. “I write with a growing sense of urgency about recent actions taken by your Administration that both escalate the threat to marriage and imperil the religious freedom of those who promote and defend marriage,” the archbishop wrote. “The Justice Department’s [attack on the Defense of Marriage Act], in addition to other troubling federal decisions occurring recently, prompts me yet again to register my grave concerns.”Archbishop Dolan’s public overture represents a significant departure from the path of his predecessors. Only...

As I reported last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched a campaign to expand the concept of "religious liberty," a move intended in part to exempt Catholic and other religious organizations from legal requirements, or, put another way, to permit Catholic organizations to discriminate based on religious belief. One key example of late is the USCCB's complaint that the Department of Health and Human Services' refusal to grant it a contract to provide services to sex trafficking victims was a case of religious discrimination. USCCB will not refer sex trafficking victims for reproductive health services, a requirement of...

[first paragraph omitted -- so that useful paragraphs might be excerpted...] ... The shepherds of America's 65 million Roman Catholics met this week for their fall conference, where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops created a new Committee for Religious Liberty. Father William E. Lori, bishop for Bridgeport, Conn., and chairman of the new group, told the assembled men of the cloth that "there is no religious liberty if we are not free to express our faith in the public square and if we are not free to act on that faith." The church has been embroiled in several skirmishes...

(Reuters) - The top U.S. Catholic bishop said on Monday that a child sex abuse scandal at Penn State University "opens a wound" within the church, which remains scarred from its own similar controversies and cover-ups. "We know what you're going through," Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, told a news conference in Baltimore where hundreds of bishops have gathered for their national meeting. Dolan declined to offer advice to Penn State University on how to deal with its scandal, because the church "has not been a good example of how...

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Washington D.C., Nov 12, 2011 / 07:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Twenty-seven U.S. senators requested information on how the Department of Health and Human Services graded applicants for anti-trafficking grants and asked why the U.S. bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services was denied one.CNA obtained a copy of a Nov. 9 letter—signed by legislators including Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)—which gives department secretary Kathleen Sebelius until Nov. 18 to ensure that the department respected the bishops' conscience rights “and did not violate current law in awarding this grant.”The senators...

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan speaks at the fall General Assembly on Nov. 14, 2011 Baltimore, Md., Nov 14, 2011 / 01:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops must work to “renew the appeal of the Church,” which has wounds, like Christ did, said Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan in his first presidential address to the bishops' conference.“Christ and his Church are one,” said Archbishop Dolan. “Perhaps, brethren, our most pressing pastoral challenge today is to reclaim that truth.”Archbishop Dolan gave his first presidential address to the United States bishops at their three-day fall General Assembly in Baltimore on Nov. 14....

The U.S. bishops' relative silence contrasts with a recent Vatican document that urges stronger regulation of the financial sector and a more just distribution of wealth. Urging reforms to the left of even the most liberal Democrat in Congress, the Vatican spoke in stark terms about a global financial system that is unhinged from moral values. It's a thoughtful critique of free-market fundamentalism, in keeping with centuries of Catholic teaching as articulated by several popes. A Vatican cardinal even acknowledged that the "basic sentiment" behind the Occupy Wall Street movement aligns with Catholic values on the need for ethical corporate...

President Obama met quietly with New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan Nov. 8, the White House has confirmed. Dolan is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The men discussed a range of issues related to the often complicated and recently fractious relationship between the administration and the U.S. church hierarchy. A spokesperson for the USCCB declined to confirm or deny the meeting. The meeting came in advance of next week’s plenary meeting of the USCCB in Baltimore at which the bishops will discuss their new ad hoc committee on religious liberty. It was sandwiched between two of President...

WHAT BCG DOES BETTER CATHOLIC GIVING (BCG) is committed to go beyond important, but limited web-based investigations and just settling for the 'company line' from the CCHD gatekeepers at the USCCB and local (arch)diocesan offices. Their answers haven't sufficed. Hitting the pavement - The BCG will be paying surprise visits to many of the most questionable CCHD-funded organizations, and report our findings right here at the Better Catholic Giving web site. Whenever possible, we will also seek out people who are 'helped' through these CCHD-funded groups to see if they are really 'breaking the cycle of poverty'. This is our...

For many years now, Catholics across America have been asked by their local parishes to contribute to a variety of causes, mostly to help the less fortunate. As Catholics we are called to live the gospel and to practice the corporal works of mercy. This includes aiding those who are in need of basic necessities: from food and shelter to clothing and education. The Catholic Church is indeed the largest charitable organization on the planet. While many Catholic charitable activities have done and continue to do good work on behalf of the poor, there are a number of specific efforts...

Imagine buying an apple from an orchard, biting into it, and discovering that the apple is full of worms. You’d be upset, wouldn’t you? In fact, you’d probably take the apple to the farmer, point out that the apple is full of worms, show him your receipt, and ask for a refund. Now imagine that instead of making amends, the farmer started telling you about how his staff is thoroughly committed to picking only the best apples and that his orchard has a rigorous policy in place to make sure that apples with worms are not sold from his orchard....

 The long-awaited introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal on November 27, the First Sunday of Advent, offers the Church in the Anglophere an opportunity to reflect on the riches of the liturgy, its biblical vocabulary, and its virtually inexhaustible storehouse of images. Much of that vocabulary, and a great many of those images, were lost under the “dynamic equivalence” theory of translation; they have now been restored under the “formal equivalence” method of translating. Over the next years and decades, the Catholic Church will be reminded of just what a treasure-house of wonders the liturgy is.At the...

Dr. William H. Marshner, professor of Theology at Christendom College, thoroughly reviewed the contents of this report on grants fron the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Dr. Marshner's list of accomplishments and credentials can be found here: http://www.christendom.edu/academics/faculty-marshner.php.

Under the pretense of fighting poverty and injustice, the USCCB-run Catholic Campaign for Human Development has disfigured Catholic Social teaching to make it nothing more than a tool to help promote sexual immorality and Communism.

The 1964 blog is a research blog for the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate, a Catholic organization out of Georgetown University.   They are suggesting the creation of a third political party to be called "Christian Democrats:" CARA has been in the news recently regarding results from a survey about American Catholics’ awareness and use of the U.S. Bishops’ Faithful Citizenship document (these CARA Catholic Poll questions were commissioned by Fordham's Center on Religion and Culture). Regrettably, these results indicate that few Catholics were aware of or used Faithful Citizenship in 2008. It’s a shame because it is an...