SACRAMENTO --- California's bishops this week urged lawmakers to support health care reforms which insure that healthcare is affordable and accessible to all, but exclude mandated coverage for abortion.

In a statement issued Oct. 6, Stockton Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, president of the California Catholic Conference, also asked lawmakers that reforms "uphold the status quo ban on federal funding of abortion services; protect conscience rights of healthcare providers; and safeguard the health of immigrants, their children and all of society.

Bishop Blaire noted that U.S. Catholic bishops have been calling for universal healthcare for more than 30 years.

"It appears that we are now closer to that reality than ever before. For that we are grateful," he said. "However, the bills that have either passed out of committee or are poised to do so have failed to adequately protect human life and dignity."

The bishop asked "Catholics and people of good will to join us now in urging our Senators and Members of Congress to protect basic human life and dignity in any national healthcare plan as they hammer out the details of this far-reaching and needed reform."

Supreme Court declines to stop order on release of diocesan documents
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- The U.S. Supreme Court declined Oct. 5 to intervene in orders by Connecticut courts requiring the Diocese of Bridgeport to release thousands of pages of material from 23 lawsuits settled against six priests who were sued in sexual abuse cases. With no comment, the court declined to take the appeal from the diocese, filed after the state Supreme Court upheld a Waterbury Superior Court's order in 2006 that the diocese release documents to four newspapers that sought access to them. The diocese had sought to keep sealed more than 12,000 pages of depositions, exhibits and legal arguments in the lawsuits, most of which were filed in the mid-1990s. The cases were settled by the diocese in 2001 for undisclosed amounts of money, with the agreement that the documents would remain sealed. The following year, The New York Times, later joined by the Hartford Courant, the Boston Globe and The Washington Post, filed suit to see the documents. The newspapers described them as a key part of the church's record of how charges of clergy sexual abuse were handled. A statement from the Bridgeport Diocese did not address when it would release the documents.

USCCB sees mixed results on health reform in Senate committee
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- The Senate Finance Committee made some progress toward a more affordable health care reform plan but failed to address concerns about abortion, conscience rights and the health of immigrants, officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said after the committee finished its work on its proposal Oct. 2. The committee rejected amendments that would have written into the bill the long-standing ban on federal subsidies for benefits packages that cover abortions, with rare exceptions, and would have forbidden federal agencies, and state and local governments receiving federal funds under the bill, to discriminate against health care providers that decline to perform, refer for or pay for abortions. "The bill remains deeply flawed on these issues and must be corrected," said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. "These problems must be corrected on the House and Senate floor." On the inclusion of immigrants, the committee defeated amendments opposed by the USCCB that would have placed additional restrictions on legal immigrants and their families in accessing health care, but failed to improve the access immigrants currently have.

Catholic, Lutheran leaders mark 10th anniversary of historic document
CHICAGO (CNS) --- National leaders of the Catholic Church and Lutheran World Federation gathered in Chicago Oct. 1 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. It was an evening to honor a historic moment and took place in a historic church, Old St. Patrick Church, the oldest church and oldest public building in the city. Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, co-presided at the vespers service with Bishop Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The USCCB and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America co-sponsored the event. Cardinal William H. Keeler, retired archbishop of Baltimore, also attended. The declaration said the Catholic and Lutheran churches' consensus on basic truths means that the doctrine of justification --- how people are made just in the eyes of God and saved by Jesus Christ --- is not a church-dividing issue for Catholics and Lutherans even though differences between them remain in language, theological elaboration and emphasis surrounding those basic truths. The World Methodist Council affirmed the declaration in 2006.

Synod opens with call on Africans to be forces for justice, peace
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Reconciled with one another and committed to justice, African Catholics must become active forces for justice and peace on the continent, said Cardinal Peter Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana. "On a continent, parts of which live under the shadow of conflict and death, the church must sow seeds of life," said the cardinal as he opened the work of the second special Synod of Bishops for Africa Oct. 5. As recording secretary of the synod, Cardinal Turkson presented a theological reflection on the assembly's theme and its scriptural motto: "The Church in Africa at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace. 'You are the salt of the earth. ... You are the light of the world.'" The cardinal also outlined the realities of Africa and of the church that the assembly should keep in mind during its discussions, looking particularly at religious, social, political and economic realities. The church, he said, "must preserve the continent and its people from the putrefying effects of hatred, violence, injustice and ethnocentrism."

Religious leaders urge Obama administration to work for peace in Sudan
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Representatives of 10 different religious denominations met with the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to nail down a U.S. commitment to fostering peace in Sudan. The representatives said Joshua DuBois, head of the White House office, told them that Sudan is a critical issue for President Barack Obama and that faith groups play an important role in drawing attention to Sudan. DuBois, according to the faith leaders, said addressing violence against women, which has been reported in Sudan, was a priority for Obama. "For us Sudan is a major priority and something that we're looking for the United States to provide real leadership in," said Stephen Colecchi, director of the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace, during an Oct. 2 conference call with reporters. Colecchi was one of the 10 who met earlier that day with DuBois, formerly a Pentecostal pastor. Colecchi and the others gave Dubois a letter signed by 1,410 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders urging a U.S. commitment to peace in Sudan, which has been ravaged by two civil wars and violence directed by the Muslim-led government against its own citizens --- Christian, animist and Muslim groups in the African nation's southern, western and eastern regions.

Pope names US professor to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI has named J. Russell Hittinger, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of Tulsa, Okla., as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Hittinger, 60, whose work focuses on ethical reflections bringing together philosophy, law and theology, also serves as a member of the academic council of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, a body which promotes research on and works to spread the teaching of the doctor of the church. The Vatican announced his appointment to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Oct. 2. The Vatican described Hittinger as an "expert on social, political and juridical theory," noting that his most recent area of research has been the evolution of the social doctrine of the church, particularly the church's teaching about the nature and role of the state. At the 2008 spring meeting of the academy, Hittinger was invited to make a presentation on the four foundational principles of Catholic social teaching.

'African pope? Why not?' Ghanaian cardinal tells journalists at synod
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Any cardinal, including an African, could become pope, said Cardinal Peter Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana. And, the cardinal said, no one should have been surprised that the United States, a promoter of democracy and human rights around the globe, elected a black president. During a Vatican press conference Oct. 5, Cardinal Turkson was asked about the possibility of the church having an African pope someday and about his reaction to the election of President Barack Obama. "An African pope? Why not?" he said. Cardinal Turkson said that, in assigning each cardinal a titular church in Rome, the pope --- who is the city's bishop --- makes every cardinal a member of the clergy of Rome. Assigning a titular church to a cardinal, he said, "prepares him to be the bishop of Rome. Having that system in place, the way is paved for any cleric ... wherever he comes from to become the bishop of Rome." Because any priest could become a bishop, any bishop a cardinal and any cardinal a pope, the possibility of becoming pope is "part of --- I don't want to say baggage --- is part of this package," Cardinal Turkson said. The cardinal gave the press conference as recording secretary of the Oct. 4-25 Synod of Bishops for Africa.