Assisted Suicide Among Topics for Bishops

Although the U.S. bishops' spring general assembly will focus primarily on a review of the 2002 "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" and consideration of a new document on physician-assisted suicide, the June 15-17 meeting in Seattle also will include a variety of presentations looking forward and back. Ken Hackett, president of Catholic Relief Services since 1993, will address the bishops about his nearly four decades of work with the international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic community as his retirement nears. Msgr. David Malloy, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, also will address the assembly as he concludes a five-year term as general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops are expected to look to the 2012 elections as they discuss their perennial "Faithful Citizenship" document on political responsibility, and Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington will report to them on progress toward incorporation of Anglican groups into the Catholic Church in the United States under Pope Benedict XVI's November 2009 apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus." Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin will speak to the U.S. bishops about the International Eucharistic Congress to be held in his city in June 2012. Maryknoll Father Edward Dougherty, superior general of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, will talk to them about the 100th anniversar y of the organization founded by the bishops to recruit, train, send and support American missioners overseas.