Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church in Mexico this year took the unusual step of issuing guidelines on how Mexicans should vote in the upcoming presidential election: Candidates should value marriage as a bond between a man and a woman and should place prime importance on "the right to life, starting at conception. " Both ideas were clearly aimed at leftist parties and others who have backed same-sex marriage and abortion, legalized in recent years in Mexico City. Pope Benedict XVI arrives Friday to a Mexico that, officially, is a strictly secular nation.

Presidents, politicians and physicians are fighting over who should pay for contraception, and women are getting hurt in the process. Roman Catholic bishops reject even President Obama's recent compromise not requiring religiously affiliated hospitals and universities to pay for contraception, saying it does not meet their standard of "religious liberty and moral convictions. " Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards calls the row over insurance payments part of "a misleading and outrageous assault onwomen's health.

President Obama is trying to accommodate Catholic bishops on birth control, but at CPAC, Republican presidential candidates still ranted about his assault on religion. At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Friday, Newt Gingrich warned that Obama would “declare war” on the Catholic Church if he were reelected. Mitt Romney, who in recent days has been decrying Obama's “war on religion,” pledged that he would “reverse every single Obama regulation that attacks our religious liberty and threatens innocent human life in this country.” Rick Santorum said the proposed mandate requiring all employers, including religious organizations, to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives is the kind of coercion that threatens religious freedom.

Power vs. the desert Re "The power compromise," Feb. 5 If people want renewable energy, they should understand it must come from somewhere. In this case, the desert ecosystem is the somewhere. Although the Ivanpah Valley solar site and similar projects represent a devastating loss to this environment, if we continue to depend on fossil fuels, there will be devastation just as bad elsewhere in the world. It seems that we Southern Californians are unable to deal with the devastation being so close to home.

The Catholic Church reacted strongly Friday to a White House defense of new rules that will force many religious employers to provide contraception to their workers in government-mandated health insurance plans. "The White House information about this is a combination of misleading and wrong," said Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He said the bishops would "pursue every legal mandate available to them to bring an end to this mandate.

Tens of thousands of Dutch children were sexually abused by priests and other Roman Catholic religious figures in the last 65 years, but church officials failed to take adequate action or report problems to police, an independent commission said Friday. Many of the victims spent part of their childhood in Catholic institutions such as schools and orphanages, where the risk of abuse was twice as high as in the general population, the commission said. But complaints were often ignored or covered up by authorities who were more intent on protecting the church's reputation than providing care for abuse victims.

A new and intriguing prospect for the Crystal Cathedral emerged Wednesday when the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange said it was considering buying the bankrupt church in Garden Grove and converting it to a Catholic cathedral. The announcement by Orange Bishop Tod Brown came one day after Chapman University made a $46-million bid for the 40-acre site. The Crystal Cathedral had earlier reached a tentative agreement for a sale and lease-back deal with a real estate developer, subject to approval by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Kwan.

A New York message Re "Medicare plan may have cost GOP a seat," May 25 Democrat Kathy Hochul took a House seat away from the Republicans in a very conservative district in New York, and most folks think it was because Republicans want to turn Medicare into a private voucher program. There were, in fact, many other issues. Polling in the district showed that voters were equally concerned with the lack of jobs created by the newly elected House majority. In addition, voters throughout the country are upset that Republicans refuse to discard the huge tax cut for the very wealthy and their refusal to end big tax breaks for oil companies.

When people show up for midnight Mass on Friday night at Corpus Christi Church in Pacific Palisades, they will find the same Christmas Eve magic as always. Gauzy angels will be suspended on high as if flying over the congregation. Brightly lit Christmas trees will twinkle in the sanctuary. The story of the shepherds in the field learning of the birth of Jesus will still captivate: "And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them?" FOR THE RECORD: Midnight Mass: In some editions of the Dec. 24 LATExtra section, an article about the move by some Catholic churches to schedule traditional midnight Masses at earlier times contained a garbled quote.

Around 5:20 p.m., as the Christian worshipers stood and recited "Upon this rock I will build my church," the gunfire started on the street outside. Father Thar advised everyone to stay seated and to keep praying, but Madeline Mikhal and others rushed from their pews. Suddenly a large explosion rocked Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad. Bullets whistled by. Some worshipers ran to the church basement. Mikhal darted into the priests' changing room. A barrage of bullets thundered in the main hall.