Adopt-A-Family Christmas Program seeks volunteers

LOS ANGELES --- The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Adopt-A-Family Program is seeking "volunteer angels" to help serve the 300 families to be assisted at Christmas from the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. The most urgent need is for bilingual (Spanish-speaking) volunteers to help register families by interviewing the families in their apartments and hotel rooms, a process taking place now through Oct. 26. Other volunteer opportunities include sorting and packaging of food boxes (Nov. 27-Dec. 13), gift wrapping (Dec. 11-15) and making deliveries on Delivery Day (Dec. 16). Families may also be "adopted," or sponsored, by participant-donors. For information, call (213) 637-7501.

Conscientious objection still possible in all-volunteer U.S. military

WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Conscientious objection to fighting wars is still a possibility 33 years after the U.S. ended obligatory military service. But objectors in the all-volunteer U.S. armed forces have to be opposed to all wars and not just to a particular one such as Iraq. Even with volunteers, where the presumption is that someone enlisting is willing to fight, the law allows troops to change their minds for religious or philosophical reasons. One result has been that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks activities picked up at the Catholic Peace Fellowship, which helps military personnel filing for conscientious-objector status or just wanting information about Catholic moral teachings on war. "Sept. 11 shaped what we have done since," said Holy Cross Father Michael Baxter, national secretary of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, based in South Bend, Ind. Through e-mails, telephone calls and personal contacts, the once-dormant Catholic group has actively aided about 60 people seeking conscientious-objector status since Sept. 11 and fielded more than 1,500 requests for information, said Father Baxter, also an assistant theology professor at the University of Notre Dame.

Studies show faith has positive effect on people in stressful events

WASHINGTON (CNS) --- People who had any religious belief coped better with the stresses associated with Sept. 11, 2001, than nonbelievers did, according to the principal author of two studies on that topic. Amy L. Ai, an associate professor of psychology in the University of Washington's health sciences department and a researcher for the University of Michigan Health System, also has tested her theory beyond the terrorist events of Sept. 11 to include such stressful situations as Hurricane Katrina and the Kosovo war in the Balkans as examples of communal stress, and open-heart surgery as an example of individual stress. Because about 90 percent of the people interviewed for an earlier study professed belief in some strain of Christianity or Judaism, there was no basis for comparison as to whether adherents to one faith fared better than members of another religion, Ai said in response to written questions from Catholic News Service. "The 9/11 and Kosovar studies suggest the similar effect of different faiths," she added. Ai's reports on post-Sept. 11 trauma were titled "Prayers, Spiritual Support and Positive Attitudes in Coping With the Sept. 11 National Crisis" and "Hope, Meaning and Growth Following the Sept. 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks."

Pope warns against environmental damage, says it burdens world's poor

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI delivered a strong warning against environmental damage, saying it was aggravating the already heavy burden on the world's poor. The pope, speaking at his summer villa outside Rome Aug. 27, expressed support for the Italian church's first day dedicated to the protection of creation, which was to be celebrated Sept. 1. The pope said the created world was a great gift of God but is presently "exposed to serious risks by life choices and lifestyles that can degrade it." He said, "In particular, environmental degradation makes poor people's existence intolerable." The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church says the world's poor, who often live in polluted slums, are connected to the environmental crisis. In cases of poverty and hunger, it is "virtually impossible" to avoid environmental exploitation, said the 2004 social doctrine. Pope Benedict said, "In dialogue with Christians of various churches, we need to commit ourselves to caring for the created world, without squandering its resources, and sharing them in a cooperative way."

Former Catholic Charities head among jet crash victims

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CNS) --- A retired Catholic Charities executive, Arnold Andrews, was among the 49 people who died Aug. 27 in a commuter jet crash in Lexington, Ky., said Catholic Charities USA president Father Larry Snyder. "Arnold was a true leader in the Catholic Charities movement.... His commitment to people who are poor and vulnerable was an inescapable part of who he was and was evident in even the briefest conversation with him," Father Snyder said. Andrews, 64, retired last year as executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla. From 1999 to 2005 he was a member of the national organization's board of trustees. The early Sunday morning crash occurred at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport.

Czech church sells properties to cope with dropping attendance

WARSAW (CNS) --- The Czech Catholic Church has begun selling its properties at low prices to cope with plummeting church donations and membership. "The reason is simple: we just don't have the money to maintain them," said Martin Horalek, spokesman for the Prague-based bishops' conference. "Some priests are spending most of their time on the upkeep of their churches when they should be providing pastoral care for the faithful." In an Aug. 24 interview with Catholic News Service, Horalek said property sales by the country's eight dioceses had been approved at the church's synod in 2005. However, he said church officials hoped local municipalities would still allow occasional use of the churches for Mass. Between the 1991 and 2001 censuses, the Catholic Church's membership dropped from 41 percent to 27 percent of the 10.2 million Czech population. Around 200 church properties, often in poor conditions, were returned to the Catholic Church in the 1990s after the breakdown of communism. In July 2004, the bishops' conference stopped seeking the return of thousands of properties held by the state and instead demanded compensation.