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GUATEMALA CITY – Church leaders say 80 million pages of secret police records being reviewed by the government promise Guatemalans a rare chance to rewrite the history of their violent land. The moldy records were found by accident in 2005 in an abandoned section of a police compound in Guatemala City. Some of the records date back more than a century, their faded pages describing the daily bureaucracy of repression employed for decades by Guatemala’s government. Of most interest to investigators are records from 1975 to 1985, the most violent period of Guatemala’s civil war, during which 160,000 people were killed and 40,000 disappeared.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas said the Venezuelan bishops’ conference might have a special meeting to discuss Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s proposed constitutional reform. The proposal “concerns the life of the Venezuelan people, of the Catholics of Venezuela and the rights of everybody,” he said. The cardinal said Venezuelan Catholics should participate in the reform process, to make it “a peace treaty for all Venezuelans and not a declaration of war.” The reform proposal is to be debated in the National Assembly, but it is not clear whether the assembly or the people as a whole will vote on it.

Asked what he wants to be when he grows up, 11-year-old Diallo Bratcher didn’t pause for a moment before he replied with the most serious expression he could produce. “A lawyer,” he answered. Why? “Because I talk a lot,” Diallo said, and this time his almost ever-present, infectious grin returned. Diallo, his 10-year-old brother and 8-year-old sister are, along with 141 other youngsters, part of Camp St. Vincent, founded 100 years ago to give poor, inner-city children a three-month summer opportunity to enjoy fresh air, nature and themselves. As the St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore-operated camp celebrated its centennial birthday party outside Baltimore’s Carroll Park field house Aug. 15, the organization’s executive director, John Schiavone, paused to reflect on the irony of the camp now being made up of a majority of homeless children. Sixty percent of the children, who range in ages from five to 11, are either homeless or live in transitional homes, like Diallo and his siblings.

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.