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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has conducted raids in recent weeks at workplaces across the U.S. to round up workers who are in the country illegally. In two communities where raids took place March 6 – South Bend, Ind., and New Bedford, Mass. – members of the Catholic community and the wider community continue to help families torn apart by the federal action, especially children left in limbo. A majority of the detainees in both places were women, many of them single parents with babies or toddlers.

VATICAN CITY – Human freedom must be exercised in accordance with God’s law, including the obligation to protect human life, said members of a dialogue commission representing the Vatican and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. “Freedom of choice is derived from God and therefore is not absolute, but must reflect divine will and law,” said members of the Catholic-Jewish commission at the end of their mid-March meeting in Jerusalem.

Bishop W. Francis Malooly, western vicar, presented James Upchurch with the Bishop Frank Murphy Peace and Justice Award during the annual social ministry convocation March 3 at The Seton Keough High School, Baltimore.

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, Australia, instituted 37 seminarians of the Pontifical North American College in Rome as acolytes during a celebration of the Eucharist on March 11.

JERUSALEM – A Catholic Palestinian legislator praised the new Palestinian Cabinet and said it was likely to succeed. “This is a good start,” said Bernard Sabella, a Fatah member of the Palestinian Parliament. “In effect it is a government which combines the more practical and pragmatic elements of Fatah, the independents and second-rank Hamas” members. Fatah and Hamas are Palestinian political factions with radical members and representation in government.

Joe Boys, 67, didn’t grow up in one church. His father was in the United States Army, and his family traveled often. Now that his grandson, Stephen, is Catholic and many of his friends are Catholic, he, too, is preparing to make the next step in faith. “I was not really happy in the churches I attended, but in the Catholic Church you get the feeling of unity,” said Mr. Boys, who is inspired by his grandson, who is stationed in Iraq. “I told him (Stephen) I want to learn how to pray hard for him. I want to be closer to Stephen.”

ALLENDALE, N.J. – A New Jersey health care initiative has reached its goal of getting Catholic hospitals in the state to donate umbilical-cord and placenta blood for adult stem-cell research. During a March 9 press conference at the Elie Katz Umbilical Cord Blood Program facility in Allendale, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark and Father Joseph Kukura, president of the Princeton-based Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, reported on the progress of an alliance among 10 Catholic hospitals that provide obstetrical services.

When it comes to the role of godparents in a child’s life, Church of the Holy Apostles, Gambrills, pastor Father Jeffrey S. Dauses wants sponsors to heed their lifelong responsibility to be an active and present support in the life of the child. “In the rite of baptism, there’s a question specifically directed toward the godparents; are they willing to be of assistance to the parent and to support the child in his or her life of faith, not just in the rite of baptism, but as a lifelong responsibility,” said Father Dauses, who conducts dozens of baptisms annually. “It’s always been my dream that godparents would also serve as the sponsor at confirmation, to show that ongoing connection and their ongoing presence in the life of this child.”