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The over-reach of human populations and appetites is threatening the existence of life on Earth as we know it and as we depend on it. Exploitation and pollution have to be reversed and serious work taken up to sustain and restore habitats and network ecologies. This urgent endeavor is nothing less than a global moral duty imposed by personal conscience acknowledging respect for and human dependency on nature and other life.

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Orlando, Florida

The U.S. bishops adopted a statement on embryonic stem cell research this morning, the first time the conference has spoken specifically on the issue. It asserts that harvesting embryos for research amounts to “the deliberate killing of innocent human beings,” and is therefore “a gravely immoral act.”

The statement was prepared by the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, led by Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia. Because Rigali wasn’t in attendance, it was presented by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas.

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Orlando, Florida

Perhaps it’s only fitting that a meeting held in Florida, the state that made the hanging chad famous, should feature a dramatic cliffhanger vote, which, as election day ended, remained inconclusive.

Heading into the U.S. bishops’ spring meeting in Orlando, it didn’t seem likely that a proposed new translation of the Proper of Seasons, part of the prayers and other texts for the Catholic Mass, would stir up much dust. Following a decade and a half of impassioned argument over such texts known colloquially as the “liturgy wars,” many bishops privately expressed fatigue and a desire to move on – suggesting to most observers that approval of this text ought to be more or less a given.

I'm in Orlando this week, covering the spring meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Reports can be found under the "Daily Updates" section of this site at http://ncrcafe.org/blog/2682.