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Allen Cohen sat comfortably at the head of his dining room table, chin in hand, elbow on tabletop, listening to his Italian wife of 60 years chatter about the two of them. He obviously had adapted a long time ago – being married 60 years Aug. 30 – to Jean Cohen’s liveliness and ability to overtake him in conversation.

Do not make the mistake of calling Sister Annella Martin, R.S.M., a former nurse. Although she’s been a nun for 50 years now, the Waverly native has not gone far from her roots as a medical ward nurse at Mercy Hospital in the 1950s, a position she held for seven years after graduating from Seton and from Mercy’s nursing school.

A Catholic woman from Myanmar living in Manila said she is agonizing over the violence erupting in her country as she watches the news reports.

The current tone in the immigration reform debate has inflamed fears and misunderstanding among some portions of the American public, leading to a polarized and vitriolic atmosphere, said a U.S. church official.

Is Pope Benedict XVI re-Italianizing the Roman Curia? The question has percolated around Rome in recent months as a string of Vatican appointments left Italian prelates in high places.

Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of Bishop Victor H. Balke of Crookston, Minn., and appointed as his successor Monsignor Michael J. Hoeppner, vicar general of the Diocese of Winona, Minn.

In one of his last acts as head of the U.S. military archdiocese, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien dedicated a building he hopes will be a lasting monument to the service and sacrifices of American military personnel and the chaplains who minister to them.