Catholics

A student at a Cincinnati parochial school was in critical condition after he pulled out a gun in a classroom and shot himself in an apparent suicide attempt, officials said. The youth, who has not been named, was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where his condition was described as critical, officials said. The incident, the latest involving a gun at a school, took place at La Salle High School in Cincinnati. About 700 students attend the all-male Roman Catholic school, which posted a message on the building's announcement board: “Please Pray for the Students of La Salle.” About 8 a.m., “a student produced a gun inside one of the classrooms and shot himself, and we're dealing with that now,” Green Township Police Chief Bart West told reporters at a televised news conference at the school.

An old friend,  a graduate of a Jesuit high school, called my attention to this story about the decision by McQuaid Jesuit High School in Brighton, N.Y. , to allow two gay  students to attend the  school's  Junior Ball as a couple. My  friend commented: "Of  course it's a Jesuit school. Humaneness is in the S.J. DNA.” But then  I learned from another friend that a school operated by the De La Salle Christians Brothers, who taught me, also allowed a male couple to attend a prom.  In both cases the reasoning was that the school doesn't presume that a couple who come to a prom together are engaging in sexual relations.

Looks like the Boston Globe's yearlong investigation into the Catholic Church's coverup of its pedophile priests in Massachusetts will be turned into a feature film. Dreamworks Studios and Participant Media announced Tuesday that they have acquired the life rights to the Boston Globe's "Spotlight Team" of reporters and editors who spent a year interviewing victims and reviewing thousands of pages of documents, discovering years of coverup by Catholic Church leadership. Their reporting lead to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law and led to other unveilings of church coverups around the world.

A Catholic group is speaking out against a new Broadway play by Irish novelist Colm Toibin that offers an alternative interpretation of the life of the Virgin Mary. "The Testament of Mary," starring Fiona Shaw, began preview performances this week at the Walter Kerr Theatre.  The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property published a lengthy statement on its website in which it called the play "blasphemous. " "The Irish writer gives free rein to his imagination when expressing his contempt for the Gospels, Christian tradition, and Mary Most Holy," the group wrote.

The two conferences growing out of the old Big East are moving forward. Butler, Creighton and Xavier will join the so-called Catholic 7 schools in the new basketball conference keeping the Big East name, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement will not take place until Wednesday, when it will be made in conjunction with a news conference on the league's broadcast deal with Fox. Georgetown, St. John's, Villanova, Seton Hall, Providence, Marquette and DePaul left to form a new league for next season.

VATICAN CITY - Few people were more shocked at the choice of a Jesuit as pope than the Jesuits. There had never been a Jesuit pope before Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected last week, and he was the only Jesuit among the 115 cardinals who voted in the papal conclave. (The only other one, from Indonesia, was too ill to attend.) Pope Francis, who will be installed formally Tuesday before more than 100 heads of state and foreign delegations, including Vice President Joe Biden and what will undoubtedly be an adoring crowd, has already shown himself to be a different kind of pope.

Re "Argentina's 'dirty war' wounds still raw," March 15 That Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the person I now have to address as Pope Francis is a very disturbing proposition for a person like me who survived Argentina's 'dirty war.' I wasn't surprised when the cardinals chose someone who has the conservative views of his predecessor, but it is astonishing that they selected a man who at best remained silent when Argentina's military kidnapped, tortured...

Very few Argentines were on hand for the proceedings, for the white smoke followed by the traditional proclamation, Habemus papam - "We have a pope. " But on the other side of the world, the people of Buenos Aires erupted with jubilation when they learned that the new pontiff, Pope Francis, was Argentine. The celebration was more about national pride than religious pride, however. At the moment that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has become the face of Catholicism in the Southern Hemisphere and the world, his own country is becoming far less religious.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - In Mexico, President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted an affectionate greeting for Pope Francis as he prepared for a last-minute trip to arrive in Rome in time for Mass at the Vatican on Sunday. Acting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro joked that Hugo Chavez, his predecessor who died last week, must have persuaded Jesus that the world was ready for a South American pope. And in Brazil, many people confessed a tinge of disappointment that a Brazilian papal candidate had been bypassed for a cardinal from their rival - and fellow soccer-mad nation - Argentina.

Much has been made about Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's dedication to the poor. Almost immediately after becoming the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and renaming himself Pope Francis , the commentary began, some of it predicting his legacy before his first day on the job. “In the end, it is Pope Francis's standing as a Latin American and as an advocate of the poor that may well define him,” wrote the Washington Post's E.J....