VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Recent ordinations made without papal approval have placed Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo and the four prelates he ordained under automatic excommunication, the Vatican said. Starting with his "attempted marriage" in 2001 until his Sept. 24 ordinations of four bishops in Washington, Archbishop Milingo's actions have led him to "a condition of irregularity and progressive breach in communion with the church," said a written statement by the Vatican press office. Various church officials tried "in vain" to contact the retired archbishop of Lusaka, Zambia, and "dissuade him from continuing acts that provoke scandal," the Sept. 26 press statement said. It said that despite the "patient vigilance" shown by the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI in hoping the retired archbishop would return to full communion with the church, the archbishop's Sept. 24 ordinations "have dashed such hopes." Because of the unapproved ordinations, "both Archbishop Milingo and the four ordained men are under a 'latae sententiae' excommunication, according to Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law," the statement said. A bishop who consecrates a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him automatically incur the penalty of excommunication.

Speakers say church needs to see ministry, roles in new light
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- If the church hopes to respond to who its members are in the coming years, it will need to see itself in a new light, suggested participants in a conference on the Catholic Church in America. The Sept. 20-21 conference hosted by The Catholic University of America's Life Cycle Institute brought together reports from sociologists and pollsters, speeches by a cardinal and a columnist and descriptions of newer and growing approaches to ministry, including Opus Dei, as well as outreach to Latinos and organizations such as Voice of the Faithful. Sociologists Dean Hoge and Bill D'Antonio, both on the staff of the Life Cycle Institute, set the stage with data about the church's growth and about what Catholics say are the most important elements of being Catholic. One recent Life Cycle Institute study of U.S. Catholics asked which of a dozen things that might define the church people consider to be "very important." At the top of the list, each with 84 percent responses, were "belief in Jesus' resurrection from the dead" and "helping the poor," said Hoge.

Victims in Philadelphia tell priests of human dramas tied to abuse
WYNNEWOOD, Pa. (CNS) --- As rain fell on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, hundreds of priests from the Philadelphia Archdiocese heard three speakers tell of the evil of clergy sex abuse that they or their family members endured. "In the past year, we all have read the stories of the victims --- but it is extremely important to hear their stories firsthand, so that we may see the human face and hear the human voice, rather than simply read words on a printed page," said Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali. The cardinal organized the Sept. 15 event at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood to acquaint priests with the human dramas behind the clergy sex abuse crisis. The three speakers included two victims and the mother of two other victims. The impact of their stories about victimization by priests serving in the archdiocese was profound and disturbing.

Advice for parish Web addresses: Keep them simple, identifiable
BALTIMORE (CNS) --- Our Lady of Hope in Dundalk, Md., had the perfect Web address: www.ourladyofhope.com. But when the man maintaining the site disappeared, a Virginia health center swooped in to secure the unprotected domain name. At St. Rose of Lima in Brooklyn, however, Father Joseph O'Meara, pastor, secured the Web address for his parish and school, www.stroseparish.org, four years before they even had a site. In choosing a Web address, experts suggest one that is easily identifiable with the parish and makes sense without being too long.