NEWS

WASHINGTON - Stem-cell research is once again making news in Congress and the courts. But this time, it's on the sports pages too.

And instead of the embryonic stem-cell research that was once all the rage, the news is in the field of adult stem-cell research, which does not involve the destruction of human embryos.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, sidelined with a neck injury, reportedly went to an unidentified European country in recent weeks to obtain a treatment involving adult stem cells that is not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu might seek to turn off the spotlight that has shone on him for the past three decades, but as he approaches his 80th birthday Oct. 7, he has not been able to withdraw from public life completely.

The former Anglican primate of southern Africa now lives with his wife in the middle-class Cape Town suburb of Milnerton. Neighbors are used to seeing the diminutive archbishop on his brisk morning walks. Their greetings are met with a friendly wave of the hand, but the archbishop does not stop for a chat. Extrovert as he appears in public, the private Archbishop Tutu is reserved and, indeed, shy.

Once always available to the media, the archbishop now denies all interview requests. He still writes occasionally and speaks at selected public events. When he does so, his comments on current issues invariably make headlines. In this way, he still serves as the conscience of the nation.

WARSAW, Poland - Russia's Catholic Church criticized the demolition of a hospice complex run by the Missionaries of Charity after a Moscow court ruled it was used illegally for charity work.

In late September, Moscow city officials were preparing to bulldoze a second building operated by the order, founded by Blessed Mother Teresa. The first was destroyed Sept. 16 after a 2010 court ruling that claimed the sisters had legally rebuilt the complex but failed to register its "entry into use" two decades earlier.

"Nothing like this has happened to these sisters before anywhere in the world — it sets an unfortunate precedent," said Fr. Igor Kovalevsky, secretary-general of the Russian bishops' conference.

OTTAWA - International Planned Parenthood, which promotes and provides abortions, has received a federal grant under a G8 initiative that Prime Minister Stephen Harper said would not fund Third World abortions.

Conservative MP Brad Trost calls the $6 million CIDA grant to Planned Parenthood a “slap in the face” to all social conservatives in Parliament and the Tory caucus.

“I am very, very disappointed, very unhappy,” said Trost, the pro-life MP who campaigned last spring on getting Planned Parenthood de-funded.

TORONTO - Baby Joseph Maraachli, who had been at the centre of a legal battle between his parents and doctors, died on Sept. 27 surrounded by his family.

Joseph's father, Moe, told The Catholic Register that the funeral for the 18-month old child was held Sept. 28.

Br. Paul O'Donnell, Major Superior of the Minnesota-based Franciscan Brothers of Peace, announced the death on Facebook: "(Baby Joseph) passed away peacefully at home with his parents and family at his side. Praise God he had seven precious months with his family to be surrounded by love and was not put to death at the hands of doctors,” he wrote.

TORONTO - Critics often wonder how a Harvard-educated man like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia can believe in God. Scalia answers that being a devout Catholic does not mean you forgo your intellect or reason.

“A faith that has no reason is not sound,” Scalia said to a packed room of more than 200 lawyers and judges as keynote speaker following the 87th annual Red Mass on Sept. 22 at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto.

“That is why I am not a Branch Davidian,” he joked, with chuckles from the audience. (The Branch Davidians are the infamous sect notorious for the 1993 siege in Waco, Texas, where more than 80 people died during a standoff with the FBI.)

VATICAN CITY - Addressing the United Nations, a Vatican representative called for "courageous decisions" toward the two-state solution for the Holy Land after Palestinian leaders requested full U.N. membership for the Palestinian state.

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's top foreign affairs official, did not say whether the Vatican explicitly supported the Palestinians' U.N. initiative. But he said the Vatican viewed the Palestinian bid "in the perspective of efforts to find a definitive solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian question -- an issue addressed by a U.N. resolution of 1947 that foresaw the creation of two states.

"One of them has already been created, while the other has not yet been established, although nearly 64 years have passed. The Holy See is convinced that if we want peace, it is necessary to adopt courageous decisions," he said Sept. 27.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI will make his second trip as pope to Africa, visiting Benin Nov. 18-20 to sign and distribute a letter reflecting on the 2009 special Synod of Bishops for Africa.

The synod focused on "the church in Africa in service to reconciliation, justice and peace."

At the end of the synod, the bishops gave the pope 57 proposals for action on the part of church leaders and the faithful, including a call for a new spirituality to counter bad government, ethnic tensions, disease, exploitation by multinational companies and the cultural agenda of foreign aid organizations.

OTTAWA - Catholic judges, lawyers and politicians must never divorce their Catholic faith from their public duties, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast told a group of civic leaders that included Supreme Court Justice Louis LeBel.

In a homily given Sept. 22 at the annual Red Mass for the legal profession, Prendergast said lawyers and lawmakers must bear witness to the Gospel in the public square and urged them to infuse the rule of law with the rule of faith.

“On matters of who is entitled to live or die, on the status of marriage and the family, on the critical issue of religious liberty, the totalitarian impulse is not absent from Canada,” he warned.

OTTAWA - While the protocols and programs dioceses have adopted to combat clerical sexual abuse are necessary, they only treat the symptoms of a systemic problem, according to Sr. Nuala Kenny.

A retired pediatrician and Dalhousie University professor emeritus of bioethics, Kenny said there has never been “a Church-wide, deep conversation” about the meaning of the sexual abuse crisis and the widespread harm it has caused and the transformation “where the Lord is calling us,” the people of God.

Trauma and Transformation: the Catholic Church and the Sexual Abuse Crisis, a conference Oct. 14-15 at McGill University that Kenny has helped organize, is bringing in some of the top researchers and thinkers from across North America to have that conversation. But Kenny said she is disappointed the registered attendees are not representative of a wide cross-section of the Church.