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WASHINGTON – Five years after the U.S. bishops passed their landmark policies to prevent child sex abuse, they can look back at successes in institutionalizing safeguards and look ahead to challenges in restoring church credibility. But the basic question is: Are children safer now? “Absolutely yes,” answers Patricia O’Donnell Ewers, chairwoman of the National Review Board overseeing the bishops’ compliance with child protection policies.

SEATTLE – A funeral Mass was celebrated May 12 in a chapel at Seattle University for Walter Hubbard Jr., a national African-American Catholic leader who had headed the Seattle-based National Office for Black Catholics since 1970. Mr. Hubbard, 82, died May 5 in Seattle. No cause of death was given. He had served for two decades on Jesuit-run Seattle University’s board of regents. Born in New Orleans Oct. 19, 1924, he worked as a skilled cloth-cutter in the garment industry. He later became active in the trade union moment, serving as president of local unions in Seattle that represented garment workers and liquor store clerks, before becoming an insurance company executive.

NEW CASTLE, Ind. – Five weeks after fire destroyed historic St. Anne Church in New Castle during the early morning hours of Holy Saturday, Henry County authorities arrested William L. Abbott, 33, of New Castle on felony charges of arson, burglary and theft. County prosecutor Kit Crane said Abbott was arrested May 10 and charged with three felony counts of arson for endangering the lives of others, setting fire to a house of worship and causing a loss greater than $5,000. New Castle firefighter Jack Thurman injured his back while battling the April 7 blaze that gutted the 83-year-old brick church and county landmark. Abbott, a convicted felon with an extensive criminal history, is being held at the Henry County Jail.

VATICAN CITY – In early May, the Vatican opened its doors to 18 diplomats from Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries with significant Muslim populations. The young diplomats were attending a May 7-27 introductory course on the Vatican, Vatican diplomacy and the Vatican’s approach to Catholic-Muslim and intercultural dialogue. “We saw beautiful rooms in the Vatican that even my ambassador has not seen, and they allowed us to ask so many questions,” said Deniz Kilicer, a career diplomat currently serving at the Turkish Embassy to the Holy See.

APARECIDA, Brazil – The changes which have occurred in Latin America in recent years are so profound that they require fundamental changes in the way the church approaches pastoral work, said a cardinal from Honduras. “We need a pastoral conversion,” Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa said. “If these are difficult times, new disciples are needed – disciples who are able to respond to the difficulty, to resist the cultural storms that we are experiencing.” After listening to presidents from Latin American and Caribbean bishops’ conferences describe the problems the church is facing in their countries, Cardinal Rodriguez told reporters, “The question is how to respond to the new situations in Latin America.”

WASHINGTON – Only one-third of Catholics in a national survey said they had heard of the U.S. bishops’ policies to prevent child sex abuse and respond to abuse allegations, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate said May 16. Only one-sixth said they have heard of the abuse prevention programs in their own diocese, it added. CARA, an independent church research agency at Georgetown University in Washington, surveyed 1,048 self-identified Catholics through Knowledge Networks, which has a panel made up of a large random sample of U.S. residents who agree to participate in a variety of online polls in return for free Internet access.

In an effort to cut expenses and unify the parish congregation, Transfiguration Catholic Community plans to begin celebrating Masses in only one of its three West Baltimore churches by August. Transfiguration pastor Father Mark Carter, O.F.M. Cap., and the parish council are trying to determine which church will be used for Mass and what functions will be served in the other two church buildings. Currently, Mass is celebrated at all three churches in the parish – St. Jerome, St. Martin and St. Peter the Apostle.

The Save Middle East Action Committee and East Baltimore Development Initiative may have clashed over plans to revitalize a troubled East Baltimore neighborhood, but both organizations agree that Baltimore’s St. Wenceslaus has been instrumental in helping them compromise. St. Wenceslaus, which is focusing on commemorating signs of hope in the community, honored the two groups with a Mass and reception May 20. St. Wenceslaus pastor Father Peter Lyons, T.O.R., recognized both groups had a vested interest in reshaping the neighborhood, but had very different ideas about what was best for everyone involved, said Jack Shannon, president of EBDI.

WASHINGTON – The emphasis on Jesus’ centrality to the Catholic faith in Pope Benedict XVI’s first book as pope is likely to permeate his papacy, panelists told a Washington audience during a book launch event for “Jesus of Nazareth” May 15. Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., and Vatican analysts George Weigel and John Allen discussed the book at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington. The event was hosted by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and Bill Barry, publisher in the Doubleday religious publishing division.

WASHINGTON – The return of a prominent evangelical philosopher and theologian to the Catholic Church, his childhood home, has provoked a storm of controversy in the evangelical community. Francis J. Beckwith is a tenured associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the largest Baptist university in the world. He resigned as president of the Evangelical Theological Society May 5, after entering into full communion with the Catholic Church a week earlier.

ATLANTA – Catholic author Flannery O’Connor and Elizabeth “Betty” Hester first began corresponding in 1955 when Ms. Hester wrote a letter to Ms. O’Connor commenting on her work. Ms. Hester’s initial letter was a comment that she thought the author’s collection of short stories, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” were about God. Ms. O’Connor quickly responded, seeking more information about the stranger who understood her writing so well. It was the beginning of a friendship that lasted nearly a decade, with the two exchanging written communication almost weekly until Ms. O’Connor’s death from lupus in 1964 at age 39.