Home Page

CARACAS, Venezuela – The Vatican Embassy in Caracas was attacked with tear-gas bombs amid rising tensions over a vote to amend the constitution, Catholic officials said.

The feature (CR, Jan. 15) regarding Abraham Lincoln and reactions to his policies in Maryland was most interesting.

I was extremely distraught by the Ralph E. Moore Jr. column (CR, Jan. 15). I find it hard to believe that a Catholic newspaper could have condoned such a thing. Are Catholics really this ignorant to place Obama next to real prophets like John the Baptist and Moses? Even comparing him to Martin Luther King is a stretch. I have never heard of Catholics who would revere a man promoting a law requiring Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

Barack Obama will take the presidential oath of office Jan. 20 with the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his March 4, 1861, inauguration.

CHICAGO – The Archdiocese of Chicago agreed in December to pay out $2.6 million to settle two cases of clergy sexual abuse.

MEXICO CITY – The Archdiocese of Leon has denied that former Mexican President Vicente Fox was given preferential treatment over the annulment of his first marriage.

ST. THOMAS, Virgin Islands – The Diocese of St. Thomas and two diocesan schools are among investors who have apparently lost funds entrusted to Bernard Madoff, the Wall Street broker facing criminal charges for securities fraud.

WASHINGTON – In an appeal to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, N.Y., asked that the United States “take immediate action to help end the escalation of violence between Hamas and Israel.”

WASHINGTON – An atheist who has lost legal challenges to references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance and previous inaugurations has revived his legal effort to strip the presidential inauguration ceremony of its invocation, benediction and the oath’s reference to God.