LOS ANGELES --- Society of St. Vincent de Paul Conferences in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties are seeking help to feed homeless, disadvantaged and working-poor families and individuals as Thanksgiving approaches. The list of conferences asking donations of food and/or money includes:

---Our Lady of Victory Conference, 427 S. Evergreen Ave., Los Angeles; (323) 268-9176.

---Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa Conference, 427 S. Evergreen Ave., Los Angeles; (323) 268-9176.

---St. Joseph Conference, 1150 W. Hold Blvd., Pomona; (909) 469-9773.

---St. Madeleine Conference, 931 E. Kingsley Ave., Pomona; (909) 629-9495.

---Our Lady of the Assumption Conference, 3175 Telegraph Rd., Ventura; (805) 642-7966.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Council of L.A. is a non-profit organization that serves the L.A., Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Information: (323) 224-6273 or www.svdpla.org.

Bishops remember Salvadoran Jesuits on anniversary of 1989 murders
BALTIMORE (CNS) --- The U.S. bishops added their collective voice to those of others in honoring the memory of the six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, all of whom were assassinated 20 years ago by a Salvadoran death squad. Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, N.Y., chairman of the bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, said in a statement issued Nov. 16 --- the anniversary date of the murders --- that the bishops joined many others in "commemorating the lives and work of the six Jesuits and their collaborators." Jesuit Fathers Ignacio Ellacuria, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Segundo Montes, Amando Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno and Joaquin Lopez y Lopez were slain by an elite U.S.-trained Salvadoran army brigade on the campus of Jesuit-run Central American University in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital, along with Julie Elba Ramos, 42, and her 16-year-old daughter Celina Mariset.

Effort to keep abortion legal costs women, society, professor says
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- A professor speaking at a Georgetown University Law Center symposium on abortion suggested that society in general and women in particular bear the costs of an ongoing quest to enshrine a right to an abortion under the law. Women wonder "will opportunities be there" for them if they carry a pregnancy to term, said Robin West, a Georgetown University law professor. They may feel a decision to have an abortion ensures them certain opportunities, but abortion also relieves society of the obligation to ensure equal opportunities for pregnant women who decide to give birth, she said.

West also criticized a "myopic focus" on so-called abortion rights by supporters of legal abortion. She said such a focus takes away from other issues that must be addressed, including teen pregnancy, pregnant women who are addicted or jailed, children conceived in rape, and even the larger issue of health care --- "health care for themselves, their partners and of course their children."

She made her remarks at a Nov. 13 conference, "A New Abortion Debate: Emerging Perspectives on Choice, Life and Law," co-sponsored by two Georgetown law student groups, the Georgetown Progressive Alliance for Life and Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice.

West said when the gay community saw the toll AIDS was taking on gays at the height of the crisis, the community established a "condom code" to promote condom use to reduce the risk of getting the disease. But "nothing similar" developed among heterosexuals to change people's behavior, she said, when the estimated number of abortions performed each year spiraled past the 1 million mark.

Respect for life means seeing it as God's gift, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Recognizing that each human life belongs to God is the only way to promote respect for every person, Pope Benedict XVI said in a speech to bishops from Brazil. Too often today, people see life as "a merely human product" rather than as "a gift of God welcomed in the loving intimacy of the marriage between a man and a woman," the pope said Nov. 14 to the bishops from the State of Sao Paulo making their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican to report on the status of their dioceses. Pope Benedict urged the bishops to undertake a "constant and methodical evangelization" of their people focused on educating their consciences not only to help them live their faith more deeply, but also to empower them to be a positive force for promoting respect for human life and human dignity in society. The pope asked the Brazilian bishops to speak to the hearts of their people, "reawaken their consciences" and rally them to act together "against the growing wave of violence and disrespect for the human person."

Cardinal Kasper says provision for Anglicans is not anti-ecumenical
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The establishment of special structures for Anglicans who want to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church absolutely is not a signal of the end of ecumenical dialogue with the Anglican Communion, said the Vatican's chief ecumenist. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the visit Nov. 19-22 of Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, primate of the Anglican Communion, to the Vatican "demonstrates that there has been no rupture and reaffirms our common desire to talk to one another at a historically important moment." Archbishop Williams was scheduled to speak at a conference sponsored by Cardinal Kasper's office and to meet privately Nov. 21 with Pope Benedict. In an interview published in the Nov. 15 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Cardinal Kasper said that the papal provision is not anti-ecumenical. "To think, as some commentators have said, that the pope made this decision just to 'expand his empire' is ridiculous," the cardinal said. "Let's stick to the facts. A group of Anglicans freely and legitimately asked to enter the Catholic Church. It was not our initiative."