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WASHINGTON – Diplomats who understand the religious sensibilities of Iran are needed to act as translators between Iranian and American officials to resolve peacefully the dispute over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, said the executive director of Pax Christi USA. “We have seen no evidence in this (U.S.) administration to practice any skilled” diplomacy, Dave Robinson told Catholic News Service after a Feb. 26 press conference by U.S. Christian leaders who had returned that morning from a weeklong trip to Iran. Pax Christi USA is affiliated with Pax Christi International, a Vatican-recognized Catholic peace movement.

When the Catholic Family Network began hosting its Catholic Family Expo 17 years ago, the Woodstock group had a small following of mostly home-school advocates looking to broaden their Catholic horizons. Fast forward to 2007 and the organization is planning to host more than 2,000 Catholics at its four-day expo at the Baltimore Convention Center this summer featuring local speakers, Catholic scholars from throughout the U.S. and international celebrities.

It appeared to be the pinnacle of Catholic Robert W. Curran’s political career when eight of his colleagues on the City Council supported his bill Feb. 26 to declare the municipality a smoke-free zone. Calling the 9-2 vote historic, the council vice president and parishioner of St. Francis of Assisi, Baltimore, told his supporters their vote would save thousands of lives and serve as an inspiration for the Maryland General Assembly to follow suit and create a statewide smoking ban.

For almost five years the parishioners of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Crofton, have been waiting for an expansion and renovation of their 26 year-old church. After a few setbacks, construction has begun on a two-story addition with the first floor dedicated for the youth of the parish and the second floor for the new parish offices. “We have never had a room primarily for the youth,” said Father Edward Connelly, pastor. With about 100 young parishioners joining in youth activities, he said, they need a place to call their own. “They don’t want to just sit about a table,” he said.

It’s what Father John Swope refers to as “college prep with a kick.” That is Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Baltimore, where approximately 120 ninth graders literally will earn their education starting in the fall of 2007. The school will add a new class each year until it reaches a maximum capacity of 500. To reach that vision, administrators are forging ahead with fundraising, development plans, and construction options to gather the many pieces needed to finish this educational puzzle in the Cristo Rey Network. Father Swope leads the efforts as school president, overseeing two fundraising committees who are busily soliciting large private donations and corporations in the community.

ANNAPOLIS – In an unusual move that highlights the priority Maryland’s bishops have placed on abolishing the death penalty, Bishop Denis J. Madden, urban vicar, testified in person during Feb. 21 committee hearings on a bill that would replace the death penalty with life sentences without parole. Representatives of the Maryland Catholic Conference usually testify on behalf of the Maryland bishops, but Bishop Madden personally urged members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings and House Judiciary committees to pass the controversial legislation.

LIMA, Peru – When church leaders from throughout Latin America gather in Brazil in May for the fifth general conference of the Latin American bishops’ council, they will be grappling with the contradictions of life on the world’s most Catholic continent. While more than 450 million of the region’s 551 million people are considered Catholic, “the practice of the Christian faith is in profound crisis, which is reflected in the type of societies we have,” Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri of San Marcos, Guatemala, president of the Guatemalan bishops’ conference, told Catholic News Service. “They are societies in which there is a great deal of violence, societies that try to follow lifestyles in which consumerism and hedonism predominate, societies that lack social justice.”

WHEELING, W.Va. – To see firsthand the latest advances in coal mine safety and the daily operations of a mine, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston joined West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and others on a tour of the McElroy Mine, near Moundsville, the largest coal mine in West Virginia. In a news conference at Wheeling Jesuit University Feb. 19 following the tour, J. Davitt McAteer, vice president for sponsored programs at the university and special mine safety adviser to Manchin, said the purpose of the visit was to look at the emergency communication systems between its mines, the telephone communication systems being developed and tested there and at other facilities, and the steps being taken to introduce new technology into U.S. mines.