Catholic Media Report

On the heels of the U.S. bishops' recent declaration that abortion remains their top political priority, Pope Benedict XVI this morning issued a reminder that children already born, especially those who suffer from poverty, disease and war, must also have a place within the church's ambit of concern. While Benedict clearly affirmed the dignity of human life from the moment of conception, his remarks suggest a desire that the church's opposition to abortion not exclude other pressing social concerns. The pope spoke this morning to participants in a Nov. 13-15 conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Assistance to Health Care Workers, on the theme of "Pastoral Care of Sick Children." Benedict noted that every year, some four million newborn children die around the world at less than 26 days after birth, often due to poverty, poor health care systems, and armed conflict. He called that a matter of "urgent" concern.

A multi-faith coalition of more than 200 religious organizations is calling on President-elect Barack Obama to, as one of his first acts in office, sign an executive order banning torture. "This is an opportunity where one individual could with one stroke of the pen really change U.S. history," Linda Gustitus, president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, told reporters in a conference call Nov. 12. She said an executive order by Obama "could turn the page on a very, very dark chapter and end U.S.-sponsored torture." Nearly 60 delegations of people in 27 states and the District of Columbia contacted about 70 district and state congressional offices in a "National Day of Witness" on torture. They asked members of Congress to support a statement declaring the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against prisoners as "immoral, unwise, and un-American."

Before a huge crowd in San Diego last summer, Barack Obama vowed to make fixing illegal immigration a top priority as president, and Latinos nationwide responded with massive support for him on Election Day. Now, they are pressing him to keep his promise. From Cape Cod to California, activists on both sides of the volatile issue are girding for battle. Supporters of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants - most of whom are Latino - want Obama to press for a path to legal residency for them. Opponents say reform is impossible at a time when unemployment is soaring, and instead want tougher border security and less immigration to preserve Americans' jobs. Many analysts are skeptical that Obama can navigate the political minefield of illegal immigration in his first year, while confronting the plunging economy and two wars. Still, groups on both sides are commissioning polls to gauge Americans' appetite for the immigration issue and assembling teams to file legislation for their cause next year.

Behind the grim statistics about the nation's rising jobless rate are men and women who need help, according to Catholic Church officials and economists at Catholic universities. One immediate response to the nation's high unemployment rate should be an extension of unemployment benefits, said Tom Shellabarger, domestic policy adviser for the U.S. bishops' Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. He called it "unconscionable" that by the end of the year the unemployment benefits will run out for close to 2 million workers. According to the U.S. Labor Department statistics released Nov. 7, the jobless rate rose to 6.5 percent in October when employers fired 240,000 workers. That figure put the total number of unemployed Americans past 10.08 million, the highest level in 25 years. More than 22 percent of the nation's unemployed have been out of work for six months or longer -- something which also has not happened in 25 years.

Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions. Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education -- services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies. Although the activists insist that they are not retreating from their belief that abortion is immoral and should be outlawed, they argue that a more practical alternative is to try to reduce abortions through other means.

Reporting from Mexico City and San Salvador -- The murder 19 years ago of six Jesuit priests by a U.S.-trained army unit was the turning point in El Salvador's long civil war, an atrocity so grave that it helped force an end to the fighting. But the soldiers and officers convicted or implicated in the slayings are free under a controversial amnesty law that is receiving new attention thanks to election politics here and a potentially landmark court case in Spain. Human rights activists in the Americas and Europe said they hoped the Jesuit complaint could be used to fight impunity and bring justice to the victims' families by joining a procession of Spanish court cases that have forced Latin America to confront its violent past.

Americans painted a new picture of the "values voter" in the recent election. They rejected the "culture wars," with its narrow agendas and liberal-conservative divisiveness, in favor of politics that build bridges on a range of contentious issues. The readiness to work together is revealed in a national poll on voters' priorities and values taken on Nov. 5-7 in the immediate aftermath of the election. Nearly three-quarters of voters (and of religious voters) said people of faith should promote the common good, not protect their own views. Even groups most active in the religious right said a broader faith agenda would best reflect their values.

World leaders, senior diplomats and religious figures condemned extremism and terrorism Wednesday at a U.N. conference on interfaith dialogue that brought Israel and Arab countries together to promote tolerance. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the event's chief sponsor, opened the meeting with a call for greater understanding in the Middle East, saying that religious and cultural differences in the region have "engendered intolerance, causing devastating wars and considerable bloodshed." "Terrorism and criminality are the enemies of every religion and every civilization," said Abdullah, in his first address before the U.N. General Assembly as Saudi Arabia's leader. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended the speech, and President Bush will address the conference Thursday.

While economic indicators continue to tumble, the number of people turning to parish food pantries continues to climb. In many cases, pantries are struggling to meet the increased demand. Across the country it's the same story. At People of Progress, a food bank and emergency assistance charity in Redding, Calif., executive director Melinda Brown said that she's seeing "more and more new people, and a lot of working people, which is new." The working people are getting food from the charity to make their paychecks stretch to the end of the month, she said. "We're seeing people who have never asked for help before." A new report from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that in 2007 13 million households experienced "food insecurity," meaning their access to adequate food was limited by a lack of money and other resources. That was 11.1 percent of all U.S. households.

For a problem that is not exclusively financial, there needs to be a solution that is not exclusively financial, a Vatican representative is recalling. Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said this on Vatican Radio when he discussed the ongoing worldwide economic crisis. "The crisis that the world is currently living is not just financial, and therefore the solution cannot be purely financial," he said. Instead, the economic crisis "verifies what the Church's social doctrine has said for a long time: When an economic-financial system goes into crisis, it is never due to economic of financial motives, but because in its origin, there has been a wound in the global moral system." In this sense, the prelate indicated that at the origin, there is a "crisis of trust."