Courting pro-life Democrats
Los Angeles Times (registration site)
Sensing an opportunity to impress religious voters — and tip elections — Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail have begun to adopt some of the language and policy goals of the antiabortion movement. The new approach embraces some measures long sought by pro-life activists. It's designed to appeal to the broad centrist bloc of voters who don't want to criminalize every abortion — yet are troubled by a culture that accepts 1.3 million abortion deaths a year.

Seeking sanctuary, again
Time
The New Sanctuary Movement, founded in May, has coordinated what it calls prophetic hospitality (there is no legal right to asylum in churches, but immigration authorities tend not to raid them) for eight undocumented immigrants in five cities. The movement draws from an actual grass-roots network but has also garnered support within bodies as big as the United Methodist Church. It is reminiscent of the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, of which many Catholic parishes were a part, that aided refugees fleeing Central America. This time around, however, it seems to have more to do with the right-left political debate over immigration than protection from violence.

“I, too, lived through Vatican Council II”
Chiesa.org
The period following Vatican II reminds Pope Benedict XVI of the "total chaos" after the Council of Nicaea, the first in history. But from that stormy Council emerged the "Credo.” And today? The pontiff answered these and questions about evolution and how to pastorally respond to divorced and remarried Catholics when he met with Italian priests while on vacation earlier this week. The text of his conversation with these priests is offered here.