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CHICAGO – Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George returned home from the hospital on Easter after falling and breaking the upper part of his right leg while blessing food baskets a day earlier. Cardinal George, 70, apparently slipped on water on the marble floor at St. Ferdinand Catholic Church April 7, landing on his hip and breaking the top of his femur, according to an April 9 statement from the archdiocese. Cardinal George uses a brace on his right leg because of complications from polio and has said it’s not uncommon for him to fall because of the brace, so he resumed the service. As that proved painful, however, he later was taken to the Loyola University Medical Center, where the break was found.

As governor of Maryland, St. Francis of Assisi, Baltimore, parishioner Martin J. O’Malley works long hours in a high-pressure job that health experts say can lead to chronic health problems if he doesn’t balance his professional life with other activities.

BEIJING – He’s known as “the black pope of China” – a play on the “black pope” title given to the powerful head of the Jesuits – and whether or not people like his methods, they all agree that he is one of the most powerful laymen in China’s Catholic Church. Anthony Liu Bainian, 73, an ex-seminarian from Shangdong province, currently serves as vice president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. To some he is a man trying to ingratiate himself to government authorities; to others he is the man with power to sway government decisions about the church.

BEIJING – China’s one-child policy, begun nearly 30 years ago, still provides pastoral challenges and is taking a toll on vocations, said some Chinese church leaders. Auxiliary Bishop Paul Pei Junmin of Liaoning said that, in the past, the diocese used to have 20 young men and women enter the seminary and convent each year, but that has changed because of the one-child policy and “the influence of materialism.” “Here the church in China is very traditional, conservative,” said Bishop Pei. “It’s very difficult to reconcile with the government regulations and church teachings,” especially when people can lose their jobs for having a second child.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Catholic Church’s relationship with younger adults is problematic, says a newly published study by four leading sociologists of religion. In one recent survey “just over half of American Catholics said that young adults’ lack of participation in the church is a serious problem,” the 205-page book says. That concern was reflected not just by older Catholics, but even by nearly half of the younger adult Catholics surveyed, it says. The new book is titled “American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church.” It was co-authored by William V. D’Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge and Mary L. Gautier.

JOLIET, Ill. – In keeping with the springtime theme that celebrates the wealth of new life found throughout nature – blooming flowers, budding trees and newborn bunnies – the pro-life ministry at St. Patrick Parish in Joliet fits right in. For the fifth year in a row, St. Patrick Parish entered a respect-life float in Joliet’s Easter parade, held April 1. More than 90 entries in this year’s parade attracted several hundred onlookers along the route.

VATICAN CITY – It’s not every day a person gets a call from the Vatican, and most people would be bowled over when it happens. The late Mario Luzi, who as a prolific Italian poet shouldn’t have been at a loss for words, was “flabbergasted” when the Vatican called him up saying Pope John Paul II wanted him to pen the meditations for the pope’s 1999 Good Friday Way of the Cross, an event watched each year by millions of people around the world.

Among the many ways of communicating the good news of the Gospel is radio. A radio Mass brings the Gospel into many homes in the Baltimore area every Sunday. On March 18 I had the privilege of celebrating a radio Mass and preaching at St. Ignatius Church. The pastor, Father James Casciotti, S.J., welcomed me to the special studio which is the weekly scene of the Mass. The Gospel readings that day told the story of the Prodigal Son, although it really shows God as the Merciful Father, who forgives the failings of the son, embraces him, and has the fatted calf killed to celebrate his return.