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Finding a home, a job, a purpose and peace for men who’ve spent most of their lives inside prison, addicted, raging and lost is never going to be easy. But Curtis Wiebe, who has spent 23 of his 45 years inside, has a suggestion for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews: Don’t cut programs that work.

When Correctional Services Canada decided in October not to renew the contracts of 49 part-time chaplains working in Canada’s federal prisons, it also meant cutting the programs they run — including the one that has helped Wiebe turn his life around.

As Wiebe neared release he moved from the maximum security Stoney Mountain institution near Winnipeg to the nearby minimum security Rockwood prison. In Rockwood he began meeting with a group led by part-time chaplain Sr. Carol Peloquin. The group called Next Step helped prisoners deal with the prospect of life on the outside in practical ways — driving them to appointments, finding a doctor, reconnecting with family when possible. It also selected a few men who both needed and wanted a supportive environment to live at Quixote House.

That’s where Wiebe is now, living with two Jesuit priests and four other parolees in an environment free of drugs and other negative influences, working on finishing high school, making plans for life beyond prison.

“I just couldn’t take it any more. If I had to come back (to prison) then my life’s over kind of thing,” said Wiebe. “And I like life, so I decided to stay out.”

But without Next Step and the part-time chaplain who runs it, staying out will be infinitely harder. Without Next Step there’s no path into Quixote House. Without Quixote House all Wiebe could afford on his disability pension would be a rooming house on the rough north side of town where drugs and alcohol are a constant presence.

There have been 67 men through Next Step over the last five years and three have gone back to jail for parole violations. All three were addicts and two were mental health patients. It’s a pretty good track record, said Next Step originator Peloquin.

“Quite a number of them are law-abiding citizens who would have jobs and are paying taxes, who wouldn’t be scaring the public,” she said.

The Jesuits and the Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus, Peloquin’s community, are in the process of adding a third step to the supportive process of reintegration they’ve built on the Next Step program. Next door to Quixote House they are renovating an old crack house to create individual apartments to be known as the Massey Apartments — named after Jesuit Father Brian Massey who was a prison chaplain in Jamaica and Canada. Once complete, graduates from Quixote House will have a chance to try out independent living in their own apartment, but still with the support of Next Step.

Remove Next Step and the whole structure comes crashing down.

Correctional Services Canada gassed the $1.3 million-a-year part-time chaplain program without first working out what happens to the associated programs.

“A decision has yet to be made about all services that are connected with part-time chaplains,” reads an e-mail to The Catholic Register from the CSC media relations staff. “CSC is consulting with its various partners between now and the end of March 2013 to solicit their feedback and discuss the implementation of the full-time model of chaplaincy services.”

The Canadian bishops have kept their heads down while they quietly engage the federal prison service on a plan B.

“It would be sort of imprudent for us to comment,” said Whitehorse Bishop Gary Gordon, who acts as the liaison of prison ministry for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. “I know the commissioner and I know the chaplain management are working very hard to come up with viable options and alternatives and modalities of doing ministry.”

Central to the negotiations on how to do prison ministry without 49 part-time contract holders will be maintaining a memorandum of understanding between faith groups and CSC which stipulates the equivalent of one full-time professional chaplain for every 150 to 200 inmates.

So far Correctional Services has been talking up the 2,500 volunteers who contribute to chaplaincy.

Kathleen Mico, who earlier this year took over Next Step from Peloquin, is concerned that the dozens of volunteers she works with won’t have a program to volunteer for. It’s Mico, as the professional trained by Peloquin, who co-ordinates the volunteers for Next Step. If CSC takes away Mico, what will the volunteers do?

Given that just one prisoner in Stoney Mountain costs taxpayers about $100,000 per year, a program that keeps men out of prison on a quarter-time salary and two dozen volunteers is a pretty good deal, said Mico.

Not all groups affected by the decision to axe the chaplains are taking the behind-the-scenes approach of the Canadian bishops. Full-time federal prison chaplains are calling the decision a breach of non-Christian prisoner rights. Only one of the 80 full-time chaplains working in the federal prisons is not Christian.

While Toews claims a professional chaplain should be capable of serving the entire population regardless of religious affiliation — just as military chaplains do in the armed forces — Rev. Lloyd Bruce, full-time chaplain at the medium security Springhill Institution in Nova Scotia, isn’t buying it.

“Taking away professional chaplains of other world faith traditions is taking away hope from others who are struggling to turn their lives around,” Bruce wrote in a letter to Toews.

“Your decision not to renew part-time contracts with faith communities for provision of chaplaincy services with Correctional Service Canada will essentially eliminate chaplaincy services for non-Christians,” wrote the Moderator of the United Church of Canada Rev. Gary Paterson.

While the decision affects Buddhists, Jews, Jains and others who won’t have access to their own clergy unless those clergy volunteer, the 40 per cent of federal prisoners who are Catholic will be hit harder, said Gordon. Lay and Protestant chaplains may be very good counsellors and advocates for prisoners, but they can’t hear confessions, celebrate Mass, anoint the sick. Catholic canon law defines a chaplain as a priest.

Since 1975 Canada has endorsed the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which guarantees prisoners the right to access their own clergy. But that minimum standard is no help when it comes to maintaining the part-time chaplains.

“We’re quite aware that the government is under no obligation to pay for it. They are under an obligation to open the doors, access,” said Gordon.

Mico is one of just two part-time prison chaplains whose contract extends beyond next spring. But when her contract runs out in 2014 she’ll have to find another job. She simply can’t keep co-ordinating Next Step for free.

As the Catholic bishops look for solutions their primary interest is in maintaining service to prisoners, said Gordon.

“I can quite honestly and definitively say that as a Catholic Church we serve people. If we can get the remuneration to put those things in place, then we can serve them better,” he said.

Massachusetts defeats assisted suicide; California keeps death penalty 

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WASHINGTON - Massachusetts voters narrowly defeated a "death with dignity" measure, rejecting attempts to legalize assisted suicide, while in California, an initiative to end the use of the death penalty was defeated as well in another close vote.

The Massachusetts initiative, known as Question 2, was defeated by fewer than 39,000 votes — 1,395,227 to 1,356,899 — with the largest opposition rising in counties in the centre of the state and those north and south of Boston.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston was pleased with the outcome, saying the common good was served in the measure's defeat.

"The campaign against physician-assisted suicide brought together a diverse coalition from medical, disability rights and interfaith communities, all dedicated to ensuring that our residents were well informed on the issue," he said in an e-mailed statement.

The cardinal called upon wider society to work with hospice organizations and palliative care providers "to improve the care provided to the terminally ill."

"It is my hope and prayer that the defeat of Question 2 will help all people to understand that for our brothers and sisters confronted with terminal illness we can do better than offering them the means to end their lives."

The measure may have generated the widest debate of any statewide ballot issue in the country. The initiative would have allowed terminally ill adults to commit physician-assisted suicide under certain conditions.

The Massachusetts Catholic Conference, Massachusetts Medical Society and disability rights groups opposed it.

Under the proposal, patients estimated to have six months or fewer to live and judged medically capable to make a medical decision could decide to end their lives after submitting such a request twice orally and once in writing.

In video and written messages on the Massachusetts Catholic Conference web site, O'Malley urged voters to reject the measure, saying it would place vulnerable people at risk and that it promotes suicide.

California voters rejected Proposition 34, which would have repealed the death penalty clause in the state constitution, by 52.6 per cent to 47.4 per cent. Inmates already facing a death sentence would have been resentenced to life in prison without parole under the measure.

With 95 per cent of the vote counted early Nov. 7, the tally stood at about 4.7 million opposed to the death penalty ban and nearly 4.2 million in favour of it.

Proponents of the measure said banning capital punishment would have ended the possibility of an innocent person being put to death for a crime. They also projected that California would have saved $130 million annually by ending capital punishment. The measure called for a one-time expenditure of $100 million for solving major crimes.

Opponents, including law enforcement officers and three former governors, maintained that the savings estimates were overblown and that the state's onerous death penalty system is in need of repair and should not be replaced.

The California Catholic Conference backed Proposition 34, saying that the inherent dignity of each person must be upheld and that even people convicted of any serious crime must not be put to death. The church also called for wide-scale restorative justice efforts to afford the opportunity for repentance and reconciliation among the affected individuals.

In Florida, voters defeated an amendment to the state constitution that would have prohibited public funding of abortion services or insurance coverage that covered abortions and also would have allowed legislation to restore parental consent for a minor less than the age of 16 to have an abortion.

Amendment 6 failed, by a 55 to 45 per cent margin.

A second constitutional amendment that would have lifted a ban on public funds going directly or indirectly to any church or religious denomination for the delivery of social services also was defeated by a similar margin, 55.5 per cent to 44.5 per cent.

In Montana, voters approved by more than 2-1 a referendum that would require parental approval of a minor child's abortion.

MP invites civil society to join the fight against human trafficking

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OTTAWA - It is one thing to set victims of human trafficking free but quite another to get them started on a new life.

“They believe they are good for nothing,” said Conservative MP Joy Smith. “This is so wrong. It breaks my heart. A lot of these girls were lost and had no support to get back on their feet.”

With that in mind Smith has launched a foundation to invite the public to participate in the fight against human trafficking.

The Joy Smith Foundation is a registered, non-profit organization where “every red cent goes to the victims and the NGOs that take care of them,” Smith said.

The foundation is a follow-up to the federal government’s National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking announced in June 2012. Non-political and non-partisan, the foundation is all about the victims,, Smith said.

Victims are “so traumatized they need support” to “start their lives again,” she said. They “need a vision” to rebuild their lives.

“I’m trying to be a role model for the public to show them what they can do,” Smith said. The money goes to the victims to provide rehabilitation to prepare them for a new life outside the sex trade; for clothing, counselling, housing, and money, “all those important everyday things.”

She recalled the court testimony of one trafficking victim who said she felt “good for nothing except giving sex to men.”

The foundation’s other component is building awareness of the plight of trafficking victims and the “unsung heroes” among police officers who rescue them and the NGOs that look after them, Smith said. “These people need to be thanked.”

Smith said people do not realize how hard it is to work in the human trafficking field and the kinds of blocks one runs into, from “judicial blocks” to the blocks from one’s peers in the police force. The work can be discouraging and depressing because the damage to trafficked women and children is so horrible, she said.

“It’s all about love, your love for girls and a desire to give them a fresh start,” she said.

Smith is the first MP in Canadian history to cause amendments to the Criminal Code twice through private member’s bills. Bill C-310 added a mandatory five-year sentence to those convicted of trafficking children under 18, and C-268 made human trafficking an extra-territorial offence, allowing prosecution of Canadian citizens or residents for trafficking crimes committed in other countries.

More information about the foundation can be found at www.joysmithfoundation.com

Pope sends $1 million in aid for Syria, cardinal delegate to Lebanon

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VATICAN CITY - Instability and increasing violence in Syria have prompted Pope Benedict XVI to cancel the planned visit to the war-torn nation by a delegation of cardinals and bishops.

Instead, the pope announced Nov. 7, he has sent a smaller group to Lebanon to deliver a $1 million donation and boost the church's humanitarian response to the crisis.

The pope also appealed for dialogue to end the Syrian conflict, saying: "We have to do everything possible because one day it could be too late."

"I renew my invitation to the parties in conflict, and to all those who have the good of Syria at heart, to spare no effort in the search for peace and to pursue through dialogue the path to a just coexistence, in view of a suitable political solution of the conflict," Pope Benedict said at the end of his general audience in St. Peter's Square.

"I continue to follow with great concern the tragic situation of violent conflict in Syria, where the fighting has not ceased and each day the toll of victims rises, accompanied by the untold suffering of many civilians, especially those who have been forced to abandon their homes," he said.

He said he had hoped to send a delegation of three cardinals, three bishops and a priest to Syria during the world Synod of Bishops, which met for three weeks at the Vatican in October, to show solidarity with victims and encourage peace negotiations. The papal delegation to Damascus was to have included Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is chairman of the board of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.

"Unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances and developments, it was not possible to carry out this initiative as planned," the pope said, "and so I have decided to entrust a special mission to Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum," which promotes and coordinates Catholic charitable giving.

Together with Cor Unum's secretary, Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, and Michel Roy, secretary-general of the Vatican-based umbrella group of Catholic aid agencies, Caritas Internationalis, Cardinal Sarah was to be in Lebanon Nov. 7-10, where he was to meet with priests, religious and lay representatives of Christian churches in Syria.

"He will visit a number of refugees from that country and will chair a meeting of Catholic charitable agencies to coordinate efforts, as the Holy See has urgently requested, to provide assistance to the Syrian people, inside and outside the country," the pope said of Cardinal Sarah's mandate.

The cardinal will deliver a $1 million donation made by participants in the Oct 7-28 synod and the pope himself. The money is to provide humanitarian aid and support local churches in an effort to bring some relief to those hit by the crisis, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters.

The papal delegation's visit itself is also meant to "prompt all sides involved, as well as those who hold dear the good of Syria, to seek a just and peaceful solution to the conflict, Father Lombardi added.

Syria's civil war has left thousands dead and has displaced hundreds of thousands of people since March 2011.

Pope sends Obama telegram with prayers that freedom, justice flourish

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VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI congratulated U.S. President Barack Obama on his re-election, saying that he prayed the ideals of freedom and justice that guided America's founders might continue to flourish.

The Vatican did not make public the full text of the pope's telegram to Obama, which was sent via Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Nov. 7.

"In the message, the Holy Father sent his best wishes to the president for his new term and assured him of his prayers that God might assist him in his very great responsibility before the country and the international community," the Vatican said in a statement.

The pope also told Obama he was praying that "the ideals of liberty and justice that guided the founders of the United States of America might continue to shine" as the nation goes forward, the statement said.

In remarks to reporters, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, voiced hopes that Obama would also promote "a culture of life and religious freedom."

It is the hope of everyone that President Obama "respond to the expectations" of the American people and "serve law and justice for the well-being and growth of every person, by respecting essential human and spiritual values and by promoting the culture of life and religious freedom, which have always been so precious in the tradition of the American people and their culture," the priest said.

U.S. Catholic bishops have been at odds with Obama over his support for legalized abortion and his administration's plan to require that the private health insurance plans of most Catholic institutions cover surgical sterilization procedures and artificial birth control, which are forbidden by the church's moral teaching.

The role of president of the United States is "an immense responsibility not just for the great nation, but for the whole world, given the United States' role on the world stage," Father Lombardi said, expressing hopes that the president would be able to "find the best ways to promote the material and spiritual well-being of all and effectively promote integral human development, justice and peace in the world."

Nigerian archbishop, others question plan to dialogue with Boko Haram

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LAGOS, Nigeria (CNS) -- A Nigerian archbishop joined others in his country in questioning the wisdom of a plan that the Nigerian government dialogue with the Boko Haram Islamic sect, responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in the past several years.

Critics, including Archbishop Felix Job of Ibadan, urged Nigerian authorities to be cautious of negotiating with an extremist "faceless group" that had been involved in maiming and killing of innocent Nigerians.

Archbishop Job also criticized a Boko Haram suggestion that among its delegates to the negotiations in Saudi Arabia would be former Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the country's military ruler from 1983 to 1985 and a presidential candidate in 2003, 2007 and 2011.

Archbishop Job told Catholic News Service by telephone: "Is it not funny that the Boko Haram group, a faceless group, has a spokesman" and is seeking "dialogue with the Nigerian government as a means of resolving the insecurity?"

"Nigerians have not been told who are the sponsors of the faceless sectarian group that had been maiming and killing innocent Nigerians over time," he said. He said he wondered if the general's nomination might be "translated into meaning that he is indirectly one of the financiers of the sect."

Bishop M. John Goltok of Bauchi wondered why Saudi Arabia was chosen as the venue for the dialogue.

"There are a lot of complications involved in the issue,'' he said.

Among Boko Haram's targets have been Christian churches. One of the most recent attacks occurred Oct. 28 in the city of Kaduna, when a car bomb slammed into St. Rita's Catholic Church, killing at least eight people and injuring 135 -- many of them children.

Family is key ally in fighting crime, Vatican official tells Interpol

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The absolute frontline in the prevention of crime is the family, a top Vatican official told members of Interpol, the international police organization.

To prevent crime and violence, societies must educate citizens about their own dignity and the value of each human life, promote solidarity and instill a sense of justice in society -- all values that can be learned earliest and best in the family, said Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's secretary for relations with states.

The archbishop spoke to members of Interpol holding their general assembly Nov. 5-8 in Rome.

The 190 country-members of Interpol not only coordinate crime-fighting efforts, but also work together on crime prevention programs.

An increase of crime, particularly brutally violent crime, around the world calls for even greater preventative actions, Archbishop Mamberti said.

Prevention requires "the removal of factors which give rise to and nourish situations of injustice. In this field a primary and preventative role belongs to education inspired by respect for human life in all circumstances," he said.

Only with the recognition of the value of each life, he said, will it be "possible to create a strong social fabric united in its fundamental values and able to resist the provocation of extreme violence."

"In this context, the most important place in which human beings are formed is the family. There, children experience the value of their own transcendent dignity, as they are accepted gratuitously on the basis of the stable and reciprocal love of their parents," he said.

In the family, people have their first experiences of "justice and forgiveness, which cements family relationships and acts as a foundation for the correct insertion into social life," Archbishop Mamberti said.

The archbishop also insisted that the respect for human dignity at the basis of good social order also must be extended to those who have disturbed the social order.

"The criminal, no matter how grave the crimes he committed, always remains a human person, endowed with rights and obligations," he said.

"The state must take steps to prevent and repress criminal activity and compensate for the disorder caused by criminal action," the archbishop said, "but doing this, it always must abstain from mistreatment and torture, and assure the safeguarding of the fundamental rights that every person enjoys."

Pope Benedict hopes new Coptic leader can help foster peace in Egypt

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VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI praised the choice of the new patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, saying he was confident the new leader would help build a new Egypt that would serve the common good of the nation and the whole Middle East.

Bishop Tawadros, 60, was chosen Nov. 4 to lead Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, the largest Christian community in the country. He will be ordained Nov. 18 as Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria and patriarch of the See of St. Mark.

Pope Benedict said in a telegram to the new pope that he was "filled with joy" upon learning of the news and extended his "good wishes and prayerful solidarity."

"I am confident that, like your renowned predecessor, Pope Shenouda III, you will be a genuine spiritual father for your people and an effective partner with all your fellow-citizens in building the new Egypt in peace and harmony, serving the common good and the good of the entire Middle East," Pope Benedict wrote.

"In these challenging times it is important for all Christians to bear witness to the love and fellowship that binds them together," mindful of God's call for Christian unity, the Pope said.

Pope Benedict noted the "important progress" in ecumenical relations that was made under the guidance of the late Pope Shenouda, who died in March at age 88 after leading the Church for four decades.

More than 2,400 bishops and elite lay leaders voted to reduce a five-person short list to three nominees for a new pope. Bishop Tawadros' name was drawn from a glass bowl by a blindfolded child in a traditional ceremony held at Cairo's St. Mark's Cathedral; the Coptic Orthodox Church says the process lets "the hand of God" make the final choice.

Bishop Tawadros, whose birthday fell on the day of his selection, is bishop of Beheira. He studied pharmaceutical sciences at Alexandria University and reportedly ran a medicine factory before taking his vows.

"He is young — 60 is not so old — and he is well-educated," Fr. Rafic Grieche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic bishops' conference, told Catholic News Service. "He can make interior changes to his Church and at the same time be open to other churches and to the country's Muslims."

But the new pope will face a raft of challenges, with political debate in Egypt over how prominent a role Islamic law should play in the country's long-awaited constitution. His reaction to incidents of sectarian violence, which peaked in the months following Egypt's early 2011 uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, will also be key.

Michael Meunier, president of the U.S. Copts Association, was one of the laymen who participated in the complex election process. He told Vatican Radio Nov. 4 that people saw in Bishop Tawadros a man "who could unite Egypt's Christians in these very difficult times, a man of dialogue."

Dialogue and reconciliation with other Christian churches are critical, Meunier said, "because we are faced with many other challenges from hardliners" and extremist elements in the Muslim community.

"On a whole there is no future for Christians in Egypt without dialogue with Muslims. We have to engage moderate Muslims in the political fight that we face in Egypt, for example the new constitution being drafted; there are a lot of fanatic elements in society and they are going after moderate Muslims, they are going after women and they are going after Christians," he said.

"It is important to have a pope who believes in dialogue with Muslims because it's the only way to help promote democracy, religious freedom, human rights and respect for all these values that we hope for," Meunier said.

Bishop Tawadros will have to win back the support of many Coptic youth, suspicious of the Church's involvement in politics during the Mubarak era. At the height of the 2011 uprising, Pope Shenouda implored Coptic Christians to remain at home, solidifying the Church's reputation for unquestioned loyalty to the state.

Speaking to television cameras at a monastery after his election, Bishop Tawadros suggested he might revise the explicitly political role the Church held under Pope Shenouda's leadership.

"The most important thing is for the Church to return and live consistently within its spiritual boundaries because this is its main work, spiritual work," he said, pledging to "rearrange the house from the inside."

Activists welcomed the new approach, but voiced skepticism over how easy it would be to achieve, given the increasingly important role of religion in Egypt's political discourse. Islamists won more than two-thirds of the seats in the country's last Parliament — dissolved in June — and President Mohammed Morsi is from the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

"It will be very difficult to get himself out of the political arena, when the (Muslim Brotherhood) mixes religion with politics," said Mina Thabet, a 23-year-old Coptic rights activist. "But I think he should."

"It has to change," said Grieche, referring to the days when the Church would back candidates from Mubarak's party in parliamentary elections.

Catholic-owned Michigan company wins injunction against HHS mandate

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A U.S. federal district court judge in Ann Arbor granted a Michigan business, Weingartz Supply Co., a temporary injunction from the Health and Human Services' contraceptive mandate.

The judge also dismissed a lawsuit filed by a non-profit Catholic group, Legatus, because he said the religious organization qualified for the Obama administration's temporary "safe harbour" from having to comply with the mandate.

But he also stipulated the federal government must provide monthly updates on the status of the process for amending final regulations covered by the safe harbour period.

Erin Mersino, lead counsel for Thomas More Law Centre, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, which represented the plaintiffs, told Catholic News Service Nov. 2 that she was "happy with the court decision" and described both decisions as "a straight win for us."

Daniel Weingartz, president of the supply company, which sells outdoor power equipment and employs approximately 170 people, is a Catholic who says the mandate conflicted with his faith.

In the ruling, Judge Robert Cleland of the Eastern District of Michigan, said the "loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury." He did not rule on the mandate's constitutionality, but his decision keeps the company from having to comply with the mandate until the constitutional claims are resolved.

"The harm in delaying the implementation of a statute that may later be deemed constitutional must yield to the risk presented here of substantially infringing the sincere exercise of religious beliefs," he said in his 29-page opinion.
Mersino called the ruling "not only a victory for our clients, but for religious freedom."

The HHS mandate requires all employers, including most religious employers, to cover the costs of contraceptives, including some that can cause abortions, and sterilizations in employee health plans. It does not include a conscience clause for employers who object to such coverage on moral grounds. A narrow exemption applies only to those religious institutions that seek to inculcate their religious values and primarily employ and serve people of their own faith.

In July, a Colorado judge similarly granted a temporary injunction from the HHS contraceptive mandate to Hercules Industries, a Catholic-owned company that provides heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment.

The Michigan judge denied without prejudice the motion for preliminary injunction on behalf of Legatus, an organization for Catholic business leaders. Cleland said Legatus fell under the "safe harbour" provision and as such does not have a claim the mandate violates the organization's rights.

In August, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a "temporary enforcement safe harbour," a year-long period that protects employers from immediate government action against them if they fail to comply with the mandate. The final rule on the mandate takes effect in August 2013.

In a similar court case, a federal judge in Oklahoma City began hearing arguments Nov. 1 for a lawsuit filed by the Christian business Hobby Lobby against the federal government's HHS mandate. Hobby Lobby, based in Oklahoma City, has more than 500 retail stores in 41 states. Its practices include remaining closed on Sundays and hiring company chaplains to minister to employees.

"We have always operated our company in a manner consistent with biblical principles, including integrity and service to others," said David Green, an evangelical Christian who is founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby. "We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate."

Hobby Lobby is the largest company to file suit against the HHS mandate and the only one not owned by a Catholic.

About 50 Catholic dioceses, universities and entities throughout the United States have filed lawsuits against the mandate.

Remembering the dead is profession of hope in eternal life, pope says

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VATICAN CITY - When Christians remember their beloved deceased, they proclaim that their bonds with them are not broken by death and they profess their hope in eternal life, said Pope Benedict XVI.

Especially by visiting cemeteries and other burial grounds, the pope said, people "reinforce the bonds of communion that death could not break."

Pope Benedict celebrated a Mass Nov. 3 in St. Peter's Basilica in memory of the 10 cardinals and 143 archbishops and bishops from around the world who died in the past year.

The evening before, Pope Benedict had paid a private visit to the grottoes under St. Peter's Basilica to pray at the tombs of the popes buried there.

The November commemorations of All Saints and All Souls, as well as other memorial Masses traditional during the month, are not simply ways Catholics remember those who have gone before them, the pope said, but they also are expressions of Catholic faith in the reality of eternal life.

"Death opens to life -- eternal life, which is not an infinite copy of the present time, but something completely new," the pope said. "Faith tells us that the true immortality to which we aspire is not an idea or concept, but a relationship of full communion with the living God."

Remembering the deceased cardinals and bishops, he said, the church prays that the Lord will give them "the eternal prize promised to faithful servants of the Gospel."

Pope Benedict said the 10 cardinals and 143 bishops were the "meek, merciful, pure of heart, peace-making disciples" mentioned in the Beatitudes of the Gospel. They were "friends of the Lord who, trusting in his promises -- also in times of difficulty or even persecution -- maintained the joy of their faith and now live with the Father forever."

Reciting the Angelus Nov. 4 with pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict said the saints are those men and women who tried to live the commandment to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves.

The pope said a deep, loving relationship with God is the best way to ensure that one becomes capable of loving others, "just as a child becomes capable of loving starting from a good relationship with his mother and father."

And just as parents love their children not only when they are being good, God always loves us and tries to help us see when and where we go astray, the pope said.

"From God, we learn to want to do only what is good and never what is bad. We learn to see others not only with our own eyes, but with the gaze of God," looking beyond the superficial to see the other person and what he or she needs, the pope said.

"Love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable," he said.

'VatiLeaks' trial of Vatican computer tech begins

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VATICAN CITY - A Vatican computer technician charged with aiding and abetting the papal butler in stealing confidential documents went on trial amid legal arguments over the definition of the charge and questions about the "anonymous source" who reported him to officials.