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ARLINGTON, Va. – What began as a joke in the kitchen will become a published cookbook this fall and possibly a TV cooking series next fall, said Father Leo Patalinghug, the break-dancing, martial-arts guru who also happens to be a skilled cook. The media project, “Grace Before Meals,” aims to bring families together around the table, said Father Patalinghug, a Baltimore priest who recently was appointed to serve as director of pastoral field education at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg. Although there is an undeniable novelty about watching a priest host a cooking show, Father Patalinghug said what is most important is the effort to get families to come closer together. The cookbook and the show are simply the vehicle to make that happen and to “strengthen families,” because families are the “domestic church,” he said. The show, in which the priest will visit families and cook with them, will air on PBS next year if the production company is able to find enough sponsors, said Father Patalinghug, who said family meals are essential to the integrity of the family. “It’s a movement before a TV show,” he said. “It’s God’s movement to bring God’s family to his table.” The cookbook, subtitled “Recipes for Family Life,” will be published this fall. Each recipe is linked to a feast day in the liturgical year, a family milestone or even disappointments. Cooking gives families a reason to come together, said Father Patalinghug.

LIMA, Peru – People left homeless by the magnitude 8 earthquake that struck Peru Aug. 15 face an immediate shortage of food and water, said Bishop Guido Brena Lopez of Ica, one of the cities hardest hit. “The situation is dramatic, because many houses have collapsed and many people have died. It’s very difficult,” Bishop Brena told Catholic News Service by telephone Aug. 16. More than 500 people are known to have been killed and 1,500 injured in the earthquake, which caused houses, shops and churches made of adobe to collapse. Rubble blocked streets in Chincha, Pisco and Ica, coastal towns along the Panamerican Highway between about 125 and 185 miles south of Lima, the Peruvian capital.

The first time Father Tyson Wood went on a ground convoy after arriving in Iraq earlier this summer, a roadside bomb exploded nearby. No one was hurt and no significant damage was sustained, but the incident was a sudden and sobering reminder that the 40-year-old military chaplain’s ministry would be one of his most challenging ever.

Rescue workers searched the rubble of houses about 100 miles south of Peru’s capital city, Lima, in search of victims and survivors of a magnitude 7.9 earthquake that struck Aug. 15 at 6:40 p.m. Officials reported at least 337 people killed and more than 1,000 injured, but the figures were expected to rise.

When The John Carroll School, Bel Air, sophomore Kristen Dukes competes in her sport, she doesn’t just shoot for success – she also jumps, swims and runs for it. Dukes has been training for the National Tetrathlon competition, a precursor to the Olympic Modern Pentathlon, which involves running cross country 3,000 meters, swimming 200 yards freestyle, pistol shooting from 10 meters and riding a jumping course over fences and other obstacles.

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy – The seemingly invincible ideologies of consumerism and hedonism and the reign of violence and terror will all be defeated by God’s love, Pope Benedict XVI said.