More than 2.3 million pilgrims attended audiences or celebrations with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican during 2012. • “Bold steps” are necessary to counter the “rising tide of aggressive posturing” between the United States and Iran, wrote Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, on Dec. 18 in a letter to National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon. • Lee Young-chan, a Jesuit priest jailed because of his support for campaigners against the construction of a military base on Jeju Island off the coast of Korea, was released on bail on Dec. 26. • Pope Benedict visited his former butler, Paolo Gabriele, in his cell in the Vatican police barracks, personally telling the butler he was forgiven and was being pardoned after his conviction for leaking Vatican documents. • Members of the Religion Newswriters Association picked the U.S. Catholic bishops’ opposition to a federal mandate for contraception coverage in health plans as the No. 1 religion story of 2012 and chose Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York as the year’s top newsmaker in their annual poll. • In his New Year’s message, Caracas Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino asked Venezuelans to pray for President Hugo Chavez in his continuing battle with cancer.
News Briefs
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”
Many have questioned how so many Latinos could support a candidate like DonaldTrump, who promised restrictive immigration policies. “And the answer is that, of course, Latinos are complicated people.”
Catholic voters were a crucial part of Donald J. Trump’s re-election as president. But did misogyny and a resistance to women in power cause Catholic voters to disregard the common good?