Country's debate over Keystone XL pipeline is far from over

By Dennis Sadowski, Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's decision to deny a permit for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline to carry Canadian crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries should have surprised no one, not even the project's staunchest supporters. The president promised he would nix the permit after Congress inserted a deadline for his decision in the bill extending the middle class tax cut passed just before Christmas.
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Praying for New Orleans, one block at a time

By Bruce Nolan, Religion News Service
NEW ORLEANS -- Millie Campbell slipped the transmission into reverse and backed her blue Chevrolet away from her spotless brick home. "Oh God," she said, "we thank you for the blood of Jesus." Then the 76-year-old cranked the wheel straight, put the car into drive, and headed slowly up Frenchmen Street, one hand on the wheel, the other turned upward toward the heavens.
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Bishops plan to use London Olympics to renew interest in Catholic faith

By Simon Caldwell, Catholic News Service
MANCHESTER, England -- British bishops plan to use the 2012 London Olympic Games to renew interest in the Catholic faith, with initiatives ranging from fighting human trafficking and homelessness to promoting youth ministry and ecumenical dialogue.
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HHS move amounts to 'to hell with you,' bishop says as protests mount

By Nancy Frazier O'Brien, Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON -- A week after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told individuals and institutions who oppose contraception "to hell with you," as one bishop put it, members of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy were mobilizing their followers to fight.
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The perils of prophesying

By Patricia Datchuck Sánchez
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez
Like two sacred bookends, the first reading from Deuteronomy and the Marcan Gospel complement one another. Together, they attest to the truth that God’s promises are always fulfilled. Speaking for God, Moses announced that God would raise up from among the Israelites a prophet who would also speak for God, as he did. “Listen to this prophet,” advised Moses. When the Marcan Jesus began his public ministry in Capernaum’s synagogue, those present sensed that his words were empowered by God. He spoke with such authority that even evil spirits listened and obeyed.
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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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New law means stripping certain protestors of their rights

By Jeff Dietrich
Habeas corpus, hocus pocus, whatever. Most Americans haven't the slightest idea what this arcane Latin term might mean or why it might be important to them, but it is the reason why most of the cases against Occupy Los Angeles are being dismissed.
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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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Catholic Charities focuses on life across the human spectrum

WASHINGTON -- Catholic Charities’ adoption services -- currently the subject of disputes with several state governments -- and its prenatal services have an obvious connection to the church’s pro-life teaching. But the full range of the agency’s work nationwide represents pro-life work as well, even if such programs are not usually thought of popularly as part of the political pro-life agenda, the head of Catholic Charities USA said in a recent interview.
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Bishops' conscience model makes light of practical reason

By David DeCosse
What if the clashes over conscience between the American Catholic bishops and the Obama Administration are driven in great measure not by anti-Catholicism nor by creeping totalitarianism but by the very model of conscience used by the bishops themselves? The next year may provide a decisive answer to this question.
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Former Episcopalians welcome new Catholic structure

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of the new U.S. Catholic ordinariate established Jan. 1 for former Anglicans/Episcopalians said they and their people welcomed with “joy and gratitude” the historic Vatican announcement that Pope Benedict XVI had established the new church jurisdiction for them.
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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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