Religious women urge opposition to new nuclear weapons
WASHINGTON --- Public hearings are taking place to discuss "Complex 2030," the new facilities proposed by the Bush Administration to manufacture new nuclear weapons, called the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). The final hearing will be held in Washington, D.C. Dec. 14.

The National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger (NRPN) is organizing religious leaders to testify at the hearing. Franciscan Sister Marie Lucey, associate director for social mission for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) will be among those testifying.

The LCWR is urging people of faith to send messages to the Department of Energy to express opposition to developing new nuclear weapons and facilities for manufacturing them. For further information copy and paste this link: www.faithfulsecurity.org. To take action, copy and paste this link: http://ga3.org/campaign/complex2030ca

Pax Christi plans 'Peace Fire for a Cease-Fire' at OLA Assumption
CLAREMONT --- Pax Christi Pomona Valley is sponsoring an interfaith prayer service to offer prayers for a cease-fire and lasting peace in Iraq and for victims of violence worldwide.

Called "Peace Fire for a Cease-Fire," the service will be held on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Dec. 28, at 6:30 p.m. at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 435 Berkeley Ave. in Claremont. Pax Christi Pomona Valley has annually held a prayer vigil on the Feast of the Holy Innocents since the war in Iraq began. All are welcome to join with Pax Christi to pray for peace and unity. For information: (909) 626-3596.

Vatican says world must never forget Holocaust
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- As the Iranian government hosted a conference questioning the truth of Holocaust, the Vatican said the Nazis' Jewish victims must be remembered and the world must make a commitment to ensuring such a tragedy could never happen again. The Dec. 11-12 Iranian conference, "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision," was called by the country's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has said the Holocaust was a myth. Speakers at the conference in Tehran included David Duke, former U.S. leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and several authors who have been sued or arrested in Europe for denying the Nazis' mass murder of European Jews. The Vatican issued a statement Dec. 12 saying, "The past century witnessed the attempt to exterminate the Jewish people with the consequent killing of millions of Jews of all ages and social categories simply for the fact that they belonged to that people. "The Shoah (the Holocaust) was an enormous tragedy, before which one cannot remain indifferent," the Vatican statement said.

Bill requiring notice about fetal pain in abortions fails in House
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- The U.S. House of Representatives failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed Dec. 6 for passage of the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. The legislation, which would have required that women undergoing an abortion at least 20 weeks into their pregnancy be informed that an abortion causes pain to the fetus, had been backed by President George W. Bush. The U.S. Catholic bishops had not taken a stand on the bill. The vote in the House was 250-162 in favor of a move to suspend the rules and pass the legislation. A two-thirds majority was needed for such a procedural move. During floor debate on the bill, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., its chief sponsor, cited expert testimony showing that unborn children have "a developed system of pain perception and response" by 20 to 22 weeks into the pregnancy.

English priest replaces Nativity scene with replica of Israeli wall
LONDON (CNS) --- A priest from the Diocese of East Anglia, England, has decided to replace a live Nativity scene for a replica of the wall encircling Bethlehem in protest of the Israeli separation barrier. Each year hundreds of people come to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in St. Ives in Cambridgeshire to see the live sheep, a cow and donkey, and actors who occasionally have brought their newborn babies to play the role of Jesus for the Nativity scene. But this year visitors will be staring up at an imposing gray replica of a portion of the wall built by the Israeli government in 2002 to keep Palestinian suicide bombers at bay. Father Paul Maddison, the parish priest, made the decision to cancel because he wants to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people suffering as a result of the wall. In place of the manger crib will be a grim assemblage, 24 feet high and 7 feet wide, of painted polystyrene stuffed with floor insulation materials. The wall will be flanked by protest banners and "stark photographs" to show how "desperate and ugly the situation is in the Holy Land," said a Dec. 11 statement by the priest. The aim is to make the replica almost identical in appearance to the nearly 27-foot-high section of wall encompassing Bethlehem. The wall will eventually will become a 400-mile-long barrier of concrete slabs and barbed wire fences separating Israel from the West Bank. The wall was to be built Dec. 15 in the church where the crib would have been.

Catholics' approval rating for bishops rises for first time in years
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (CNS) --- For the first time since before the clergy sex abuse scandal broke in early 2002, the percentage of Catholics who think the U.S. bishops are doing a "good job" is higher than the previous year, according to results of the Contemporary Catholic Trends poll conducted by LeMoyne College in Syracuse and Zogby International. In the fall 2006 Contemporary Catholic Trends survey, 71 percent of Catholics said they strongly agreed (29 percent) or somewhat agreed (42 percent) that "the U.S. bishops are doing a good job leading the Catholic Church." That percentage had been 83 percent in the fall of 2001; the U.S. clergy sexual abuse crisis erupted in Boston in January 2002. The percentage dropped as low as 58 percent in 2004. Last year, 67 percent of Catholics said the bishops were doing a good job. The latest survey results, made public Nov. 30, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. Zogby conducted telephone interviews of 1,505 self-identified Catholics chosen nationwide.