Ambassador’s ceremony draws an eclectic crowd

A Supreme Court justice, an actor and a Catholic university president walk into the State Department….. … and formalize the swearing in of their mutual friend, constitutional lawyer Douglas Kmiec, as ambassador to Malta. What sounds like the opening to a stand-up routine was instead the scene in the Treaty Room at the State Department [...]

Not a baptism by fire

Father Joseph Illo, pastor of St. Joseph Church in Modesto, Calif., has been happy to talk to reporters in recent weeks about a member of his parish community, Heidi Sierras, one of a handful of people to be baptized by the pope during the April 11 Easter Vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica. His parishioners are well accustomed to media folks hanging out after [...]

The ever-changing religious landscape in Washington

The withdrawal yesterday of former Sen. Tom Daschle as President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services reminded me that the number of Catholic politicians in the new administration and in Congress continues to ebb and flow. Daschle and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who withdrew his nomination as commerce secretary last [...]

CNS columnists urge attention to abortion issue

Few people — except editors at our client publications — know that Catholic News Service has a fairly robust columns package. You may even have read some of our columnists in your local Catholic newspaper and not known where they came from. With the change in administrations here in Washington, several of the columnists have [...]

Biden becomes first Catholic veep in U.S. history

When the former Delaware senator, Joseph R. Biden, took the oath of office of the vice president of the United States at 11:55 this morning, he became the first Catholic to hold that office in the nation’s history. John F. Kennedy holds the distinction of being the first  — and only — Catholic president in [...]

Obama team reaching out to religious groups

U.S. News & World Report has an article about efforts by the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama to reach out to leaders of religious denominations. Participants in some of these meetings said they’d already attended multiple sessions with Obama’s team, and that this represented a marked difference from the limited contacts they have had in [...]

Black Catholics and the Obama victory

No matter what one’s political leanings, it’s hard to deny the historic nature of an African-American being elected president of the United States. We explored the mixed views of black Catholics toward a pro-choice African-American candidate in a story two months ago, and some of our client newspapers did the same. Now, Our Sunday Visitor [...]

San Francisco archbishop posts open letter on same-sex marriage debate

In case you missed it, there’s been a development in the California debate over same-sex marriage: an open letter from the archbishop of San Francisco appealing for both sides to be more tolerant of each other. The money quote: We need to stop hurling names like ‘bigot’ and ‘pervert’ at each other. And we need [...]

More digital ink on the proposed Freedom of Choice Act

Lots of digital ink has been spilled this week over the Freedom of Choice Act, which was a major concern of the U.S. bishops at their fall general meeting earlier this month. Among those weighing in were CNS clients like the National Catholic Register (here and here) and the National Catholic Reporter (here), plus other [...]

Text of statement by Cardinal George on abortion, election

Just off the presses. It’s the followup to this story. STATEMENT of the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labor; if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil.” (Psalm 127, vs. [...]