Updates

Web porn law loss decried

The president of the National Council of Catholic Women reacted sharply to the May 31 federal court decision that threw out part of a law aimed at keeping children away from pornography on the Internet.

“It is bad enough that pornographic and obscene sites on the Internet make untold dollars of profit through the exploitation of women,” said a May 31 statement from NCCW president Barbara Garavalia.

“But for a federal ... court to invalidate a moderate law to restrict access when federal Internet subsidies to libraries is involved is especially offensive,” Garavalia, of west suburban Naperville, added.

A Philadelphia-based federal appeals court threw out the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which forced public libraries to use Internet filters designed to block pornography. The three-judge panel said the law went too far because the filters can also block access to sites that contain protected speech.



Attitudes vary on moral issues

A Gallup Poll of American attitudes on a range of moral issues showed strong opposition to the cloning of humans or animals, abortion, suicide, homosexual behavior and affairs between married men and women.

But half of the Americans polled said doctor-assisted suicide was morally acceptable, and more than half said it was morally acceptable to conduct medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos and for unmarried men and women to have sex.

Among 14 topics rated according to their moral acceptability, the death penalty ranked highest, with 65 percent judging it to be acceptable, followed by divorce and medical testing on animals, each considered morally acceptable by 63 percent of the respondents.



News

Padre Pio transforms town

Less than a century ago, San Giovanni Rotondo was a typical southern Italian village, cut off from the rest of the world in remote rocky hills near the Adriatic Sea.

But in 1916 a young priest named Padre Pio was transferred to the Capuchin monastery on the village outskirts.

From these small beginnings has grown a worldwide spiritual movement. Padre Pio will be named a saint on June 16, and the village of San Giovanni Rotondo has been transformed into one of the most developed pilgrimage complexes in the world.



‘Voices’ looks to the future of religious life at conference

What passes these days for conventional wisdom notwithstanding, Notre Dame de Namur Sister Kristin Matthes sees a new interest in religious life, not a decline.

Matthes says it is an exciting time to be a member of a religious community, a period of redefinement, and she will share that excitement and her ideas at a conference for women religious she helped organize-Gathering Voices for the Future-at Loyola University, June 13-15. More than 500 are expected to attend.



St. Vincent’s Orphanage: Book tells why it ‘shined’

Three thousand diapers a day. More than 60,000 children. Hundreds of nuns, nurses, doctors and volunteers. Thousands of brave birthmothers and twice as many welcoming adoptive parents.

These are some of the statistics that marked the history of St. Vincent’s Orphanage, a landmark institution that once was the official foundling home for the City of Chicago. While the authors of “St. Vincent’s: An Orphanage That Shined” take note of these facts, they devote more space to the spirit of the institution that offered loving care to thousands of infants and then turned them over to the waiting arms of adoptive families.

Our Lady of the New Millennium will be taken off “tour” between June 2-8 for a general cleaning and polishing to remove the dirt and grime that has collected over the past years. More

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