KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CNS) --- Women religious gathered at the Aug. 1-4 assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious were called to be bold in analyzing and determining the direction of religious life. Dominican Sister Laurie Brink in her keynote address reminded her audience that when religious life first emerged and again after the Second Vatican Council it was directed to the edges of society, "which were in desperate need of our compassionate attention. So it is to the margins that religious life must again move, in order to be true to its original and renewed impetus toward holiness." Also during the assembly in Kansas City, the 750 leaders of U.S. religious communities in attendance approved a resolution calling for members to promote legislation to preserve and renew wetlands and coastal regions and strengthen Louisiana's levees. A second resolution they approved promotes debt cancellation in developing countries, especially through participation in a 40-day "rolling fast" in September and October promoted by the Jubilee USA Network. The theme of the assembly was "The Next Frontier: Religious Life on the Edge of Tomorrow."

Twenty years of stats show religious retirement needs still great
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Despite steady support by American Catholics for the national Retirement Fund for Religious over the past 20 years, the unfunded liability for the care of elderly U.S. men and women religious continues to grow, according to a new report. Annual national collections since 1988 have raised more than $529 million for the needs of retired religious, with more than $507 million being distributed to more than 500 religious congregations, the June statistical report of the National Religious Retirement Office showed. But a December 2006 survey of 527 women's institutes and 154 men's institutes showed that only 11 percent of women's congregations and 12 percent of men's congregations reported being "adequately funded" for the retirement needs of their members, based on designated assets and the reported cost of care. By contrast, 26 percent of the women's institutes and 19 percent of the men's said their funding for retirement needs came to between 0 percent and 20 percent of the amount needed. At their June 2006 meeting in Los Angeles, the U.S. bishops approved extending the yearly collection until 2017. It had been due to expire in 2007.

Iraqi Christians were safer under Saddam, says Vatican official
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Although Iraq has a democratic government, Iraqi Christians were safer and had more protection under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, said the future head of the Vatican's interreligious dialogue council. During the buildup to the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who will become head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue Sept. 1, had criticized the U.S. government's plan of preventative war and said a unilateral war against Iraq would be a "crime against peace." In a recent interview with the Italian magazine 30 Giorni, the cardinal said his early criticisms had been prophetic. "The facts speak for themselves. Alienating the international community (with the U.S. push for war) was a mistake," he said in the magazine's Aug. 10 issue. A copy of the interview was released in advance to journalists. He said an "unjust approach" was used to unseat Saddam from power, resulting in the mounting chaos in Iraq today. "Power is in the hands of the strongest --- the Shiites --- and the country is sinking into a sectarian civil war (between Sunni and Shiite Muslims) in which not even Christians are spared," he said.

Caritas distributes food, supplies to victims of floods in Bangladesh
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CNS) --- Responding to a government appeal, Catholic groups have been distributing food and relief materials to help victims of the recent heavy flooding in Bangladesh. Caritas Bangladesh said in a statement Aug. 5 that it had pledged about $876,000 and that the Catholic social service agency had started distributing food items to 7,500 affected families, reported UCA News, an Asian church news agency. Caritas Bangladesh is the local affiliate of Caritas Internationalis, an umbrella organization of Catholic aid agencies. Besides helping flood victims, Caritas Bangladesh said it was distributing rice and molasses in the worst-hit district of Sirajganj. It distributed clothing, bedding and other household essentials to landslide victims in several districts. Aid distribution began after heavy rains in late July plunged many low-lying parts of the country under water.

Pope, nun, priest ranked among world's top 'green' leaders
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI has been ranked as one of the top "green" religious leaders by the online environmental magazine Grist. Dominican Sister Miriam MacGillis and Passionist Father Thomas Berry also made the list ranking the top 15 environment-friendly religious leaders in the world. According to Grist, these leaders are spreading the "ecogospel." The pope and the other Catholic leaders managed to crack the list because they have spoken out on environmental issues. The pope's use of an electric-powered popemobile and solar-power-friendly Vatican City helped him land at No. 6 on the list. Grist said the pope has been increasingly vocal about the suffering that climate change will cause for the world's poor. "When he speaks out on an issue, the world listens," Lisa Hymas, senior editor of Grist, told Catholic News Service in an Aug. 3 telephone interview from Seattle, where Grist is based. Elsewhere on the list, Sister MacGillis, whom Grist says "is on a mission to save the planet," came in at No. 10 for her crusade to sustain agricultural lands. Coming in at No. 15 on the list was Father Berry, a cultural historian, theologian and author who is "widely regarded as the most important ecotheologian of our time," says Grist.

Pope says too much wealth, greed could compromise one's salvation
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) --- Too much wealth and greed could "seriously compromise" one's salvation, Pope Benedict XVI said, adding that the real treasure humanity should strive for is Christ. It is a thing of "wisdom and virtue to not set one's heart on the things of this world, because everything passes, everything can suddenly come to an end," he said before reciting the Angelus prayer Aug. 5. While one's earthly possessions and material wealth can be a necessity that are good in and of themselves, they are "not to be considered an absolute good," he told those gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence south of Rome. Wealth "does not ensure salvation, rather it could even seriously compromise it," he said. Christ, the pope said, warned people to guard against greed and becoming attached to earthly possessions. "The true treasure we Christians have to tirelessly seek out lies in 'what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God,'" he said, quoting a Bible passage from Paul's Letter to the Colossians.

Vatican official: Ugandan thugs must stop forcing children to fight
GULU, Uganda (CNS) --- Warring thugs must stop forcing children to fight for them, and the international community must make more serious efforts to fund programs to help former child soldiers rejoin civil society, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The blood shed in the so-called forgotten wars of Africa "is just as sacred in the eyes of God as that which flows between the Tigris and the Euphrates" rivers in Iraq, said Italian Cardinal Renato Martino during an Aug. 6 visit to Gulu, the scene of more than 20 years of clashes between government troops and rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army. Cardinal Martino also condemned the rebels' practice of kidnapping children and forcing them to join the rebels in battle. He said an estimated 30,000 children had been kidnapped. The cardinal called on the international community to make a greater commitment to supporting negotiated settlements of all ongoing wars and to work to prevent other outbreaks of violence by controlling the sales of weapons, promoting social justice and ensuring that foreign investments do not exacerbate economic inequalities.

Cardinal Rodriguez to chair group dedicated to new evangelization
DALLAS (CNS) --- Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has agreed to succeed Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, as chairman of the New Evangelization of America. Retired Bishop Charles V. Grahmann of Dallas, president of the organization, said Cardinal Rodriguez also would be the keynote speaker at its February 2009 conference. "Cardinal Rodriguez's distinguished contribution to evangelization and communications make him a tremendous asset to NEA," Bishop Grahmann said in a statement. "We look forward to his leadership bringing even greater vitality to the organization." Founded in 1998 as a follow-up to the world Synod of Bishops for America the year before, the New Evangelization of America is focused on the evangelization of the Americas through mass communication.