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APARECIDA, Brazil – With their agenda broadly outlined by Pope Benedict XVI, the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean began the conference that will lead to pastoral guidelines for the region for the next 10-15 years. Several bishops who spoke with journalists said the pope raised many of the issues likely to be addressed during the conference, including deeper formation in the faith and church social doctrine, poverty, ministry among indigenous peoples and family life. Archbishop Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Huancayo, Peru, called the pope’s May 13 speech to the bishops “inspiring” and “encouraging.” Archbishop Baltazar Porras Cardozo of Merida, Venezuela, told journalists that the pope did not “put us in a straitjacket” but “came to present a challenge to the church.”

APARECIDA, Brazil – On a five-day visit to Latin America, Pope Benedict XVI identified a host of social and religious challenges and said the church should respond by focusing more clearly on the person of Jesus Christ. “This is the faith that has made America the ‘continent of hope.’ Not a political ideology, not a social movement, not an economic system: faith in the God who is love – who took flesh, died and rose in Jesus Christ,” the pope said on the final day of his May 9-13 visit to Brazil. It was a comment echoed in many of his encounters, which included a rally with young people, the canonization of the first Brazilian-born saint, and the inauguration of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean.

GUARATINGUETA, Brazil – In a meeting with recovering Brazilian drug addicts, Pope Benedict XVI said drug dealers will face God’s judgment for the damage they have inflicted on individuals and society. The pope made the remarks during a visit May 12 to Fazenda da Esperanca, or Farm of Hope, a church-run drug rehabilitation center in rural Brazil. After listening to emotional testimonials from young men and women who have struggled to break free of drug and alcohol dependency, the pope urged those helped by the center to become “ambassadors of hope” to other addicts.

APARECIDA, Brazil – In calling for a “renewal and revitalization of faith” in Latin America and the Caribbean, Pope Benedict XVI warned against a revival of indigenous religions, said the church should work for justice but not become directly involved in politics, and criticized both Marxism and capitalism for their detachment from “the decisive reality which is God.” Speaking at the opening session May 13 of a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean bishops that will set directions for the region for the next decade, the pope said the faith “has serious challenges to address, because the harmonious development of society and the Catholic identity of (the region’s) peoples are in jeopardy.”

LATROBE, Pa. – President George W. Bush praised volunteerism and service and encouraged the approximately 300 graduates of St. Vincent College to “take what you’ve learned here into the world and always live up to the high ideals that this college stands for.” “The volunteer spirit of America makes us unique; it represents the true strength of our nation and must constantly be reinvigorated and renewed,” said the president, who cited the traditions of St. Benedict and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta in his May 11 commencement address. He pointed out two students from the class of 2007 for giving to others: Anthony Fiumara of Walkersville, Md., who spent two breaks teaching at St. Benedict School in one of the poorest areas of New Jersey, and Kara Shirley of Saltsburg, who during a service project in Brazil visited an AIDS clinic and brought comfort to a dying man.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has approved stricter guidelines for determining which saints will be remembered with mandatory feast days throughout the Latin-rite calendar of the Catholic Church. The General Roman Calendar, the universal schedule of holy days and feast days, is so packed that more selectivity is needed, according to new norms and a commentary published in the official bulletin of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. The pope determines who makes the universal calendar based on recommendations from the congregation, the commentary said. And, according to the new norms published in the bulletin in mid-May, those recommendations will be more difficult to obtain.

SAN FRANCISCO – Describing what he sees as an “electronic tsunami of pornography,” Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco told a Utah-based anti-pornography organization that pornography “debases the priceless worth and dignity of each human being and (God’s) gift of human sexuality.” While pornography “is not a new challenge,” the archbishop told members of the Lighted Candle Society at its annual awards dinner in Salt Lake City May 8, “the explosive increase in the accessibility and availability of pornography is new and deeply troubling.” “Every computer terminal is its pipeline, and cell phones and other hand-held devices, many of them marketed to children and young people, literally deliver pornography everywhere, to anyone,” he said in his keynote address.

Catonsville resident Jeanne Marie Hannon doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty if it means slowly watching the plants at Catholic Charities’ Gallagher Services in Timonium transform into colorful flowers or luscious vegetables. Cultivating plant life for the summer is an annual tradition for the St. Agnes, Catonsville, parishioner and client of the residential and day program for people with developmental disabilities, and she was proud to contribute to Gallagher Services’ two-day annual flower sale during the second weekend in May.

In the past 23 years, Bel Air resident Sean P. Tully experienced the deaths of both his father and a brother and noticed some people were more comfortable than others when dealing him during his initial time of mourning. In the days of viewings, prayer vigils and the eventual funeral and interment services, the 41-year-old St. Margaret, Bel Air, parishioner vividly recalls the ease some people had in comforting him and his family and the distress that others experienced. “It’s just one of those things,” said Mr. Tully, a financial planner and married father of two young daughters. “Some people just don’t know what to say and it’s very uncomfortable for them. It doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on them. It’s just hard to know what to say to someone who has just experienced that kind of loss.”

Jennifer Schall was pregnant with her third child when she had a miscarriage. Although she was upset she still wanted to have more children. She became pregnant again and at 36 weeks her baby died suddenly in her womb. Mrs. Schall eventually had two more healthy babies, but the loss of her children stayed with her. She decided to start a support group called Angel Babies for anyone who has lost a child. The group meets at St. Margaret, Bel Air, each month.