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By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

Summer 2008 is chock full of Catholic anniversaries, from the 40th birthday of Humanae Vitae to the 30th observance of the death of Pope Paul VI. One such milestone, however, does not appear on any official church calendars: it’s now been 25 years since the June 1983 disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old girl and Vatican citizen whose fate has become one of the most enduring Vatican mysteries of the 20th century.

It was a touching, powerful and embarrassing piece of media. In fact, it was enough to make the average, newspaper-reading U.S. citizen blush. There stood the president of the United States speaking passionate words into a Rose Garden microphone. He was excoriating Russia's "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence toward Georgia, "a sovereign neighboring state," in retaliation for Georgia's suppression of Ossetia, its breakaway province. The action, George Bush said with properly restrained indignation, has "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world."

Dominion theology, premised in Earth-centric cosmology, is irreconcilable with process theology that arises organically from evolving cosmic consciousness. Roman Catholic fixation in its own centrism (infallibilism) obscures the organic understanding of Divine/ Human Covenant and compromises fidelity to Covenant.

If Catholicism means to be universal in its truth-sense, and if truth is expressed organically (physically/ psychically) in ongoing evolution, then evolution and Catholicism, necessarily and morally, converge in intentional consciousness. If human intention would avoid imperiling itself it needs to seek out authentic truth revelation in evolution. Truth-sense endures in the unity and continuity of cosmic evolution (what symbiosis does); disdain toward cosmic evolution is disdain toward truth’s unity and continuity, the frustration of truth-sense.

It's my conviction that most of us who hear these lessons today, especially the first lesson, can find a lot of comfort in them. I think there are a couple of reasons for this, one of which is very obvious, and the other we have to search a little bit more deeply to discover what God is really saying to us today.

The first reason why these lessons seem so comforting, I think we find in the gospel, how quick Jesus is to reach out to help. As soon as Peter cries in fear and in need, Jesus is right there, disappointed perhaps because Peter has suddenly lacked confidence in him, but nevertheless, he's there to give Peter the help he needs. The first lesson we also find comforting because it reminds us that when we are searching for God, or perhaps when we feel somewhat abandoned by God, if we go apart, we will discover God.

In his column this week Fr. Andrew Greeley exposes the Games as a phony shadow of their proclaimed intent. Instead of a showcase of universal values promoted by the religious trappings of the opening ceremomies, they capriciously preclude some events like baseball and softball in favor of BB-gun competitions and the like. Their historical roots, reformed at the turn of the twentieth century as optimism about world peace abounded, were betrayed as the western ideals foundered in the great wars morphing into nationalistic contests of supremacy.

Jane Mayer has authored a new book called , ' The Dark Side ; The Inside Story of How The War On Terror Turned Into A War On American Ideals ' . This painstakingly researched study of the policy of ' Enhanced Interrogation ' and ' Extraordinary Rendition ' , could easily be used by interested parties to identify targets for war crimes trials. This noted New Yorker reporter has documented a program of disgusting behavior by our agents that betray the America I was taught to know and love. The back jacket of the book juxtaposes two illuminating quotes :