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Australian priest seeks American ship’s crest

SYDNEY, Australia – An Australian parish priest has been looking for the crest of an American destroyer to display in a church honoring the friendship between Americans and Australians. Father Paul Hilder of Regina Coeli Memorial Church in the Sydney suburb of Beverly Hills would like to add the crest of the USS Patterson to the church’s memorabilia commemorating the ship, which saved 627 Australians of the HMAS Canberra during a World War II battle. The church’s founder and first pastor, Father William Evans, was one of those saved during the Battle of Savo Island off the Solomon Islands in August 1942. However, Father Hilder said he has been unable to make contact with any crew members of the ship, which was decommissioned in 1945 and later was sold for scrap.

Pax Christi urges ‘complete reversal’ of U.S. Iraq policy

WASHINGTON – Pax Christi USA has been gathering signatures for an advertisement that will call for “a complete reversal of U.S. policy” in Iraq, including a withdrawal of U.S. troops. “The U.S. is not the honest broker who can craft peace among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Our continued military presence is counterproductive,” says the ad, which Pax Christi plans to run in the March 16 issue of the National Catholic Reporter. “Four years after launching an illegal and immoral war, it is time to bring the U.S. occupation of Iraq to an end,” the ad says.

Sugar may be sweet, but it can sour your health

Sugar seems to be in everything from fruit to candy, but are some sugars good for you and others not? According to Barbara Bailey, M.S., R.D., L.D.N., a registered dietitian at the Good Health Center and Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore, there are different kinds of sugars in the foods we eat. White table sugar is not the same as the sugar in a fresh orange.

Bead peddler spreads faith

During prayer, some use the rosary. Catholics can now support two causes while praying on two special rosaries produced by Sandy Paluzzi, a St. Michael the Archangel, Overlea, parishioner and owner of The Bead Peddler, an internet wholesale/retail bead supply company.

Lack of funds forces AIDS ministry network to close

CHICAGO – The National Catholic AIDS Network, which recently formed a partnership with Loyola University Chicago, has announced that it will close following its 20th annual AIDS ministry conference this summer. The decision comes at a time when more and more people in the United States are living with HIV or AIDS, as the numbers of new infections are holding steady or rising and the death rate has gone down. The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States is now estimated to be more than a million.

Spalding swimmers untouchable; de Sales places second

Strong performances from Mount de Sales, Catonsville, and Notre Dame Preparatory School, Towson, were not enough to dethrone the perennial power of McDonogh School, capturing their fifth straight Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland’s A Conference Swimming Championship Feb. 4 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County campus while Archbishop Spalding, Severn, walloped the B Conference competition by a margin of 140 points.

Need for solid, Catholic social teaching

Most adult Catholics get no religious instruction outside the weekend homilies, a fact that underscores the importance of your article on the need for “solid preaching not fluff” (CR, Feb. 1). I would like to add to Archbishop Dolan’s comments about the epidemic of “sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice…but only soothes and affirms.”

Catholic school honored for its ‘green’ efforts

DUBUQUE, Iowa – The “green” efforts of students, teachers and staff at Resurrection Elementary School in Dubuque have paid off. It is the first parochial school to receive the Green Vision Education Award from the Dubuque Metropolitan Area Solid Waste Agency. It was honored for a recycling program. During ceremonies Jan. 29 in the gym, members of the solid waste agency presented the school with the Green Vision flag to hang outside the school, and a banner to display inside the building.

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