VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Instead of wearing his yellow, blue and red Swiss Guard uniform, 24-year-old Anton Kappler sported a yellow, orange and white tracksuit and running shoes to carry the Olympic flame to St. Peter’s Square for a papal blessing. Standing on a two-tiered podium together with another torch-bearing Vatican security guard, Kappler held the flame aloft during the pope’s Dec. 8 Angelus prayer and blessing. "I am happy to bless the Olympic flame that today will go from Rome along its route to Turin, site of the next Winter Olympic Games," Pope Benedict XVI said. From the window of his papal apartment, Pope Benedict waved to the crowds in the square below and asked that the Olympic flame "remind everyone of the values of peace and brotherhood that lie at the foundation of the Olympics." The flame, which arrived in Rome from Athens, Greece, Dec. 7, was to be carried by 10,001 torchbearers across Italy and neighboring countries on a 7,020-mile, 64-day relay.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Benedict XVI said the council reminded the church to be like Mary: obedient, prayerful and courageous in times of trouble. In his homily, the pope — who served as a theological expert at the council — said he remembers the moment when Pope Paul VI declared Mary "Mother of the Church." He said, "Spontaneously the (council) fathers sprang to their feet and stood applauding, paying homage to the Mother of God, our mother, the mother of the church."

ROME (CNS) — Continuing a tradition, Pope Benedict XVI went to the center of Rome Dec. 8 to pray at the foot of a statue of Mary. Located near the Spanish Steps in a crowded district of upscale shops, the statue was erected to commemorate Pope Pius IX’s formal declaration in 1854 of the dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Local businesses, the Rome city council and a variety of families and groups leave flowers at the base of the statue on the Dec. 8 feast of the Immaculate Conception, while Rome firefighters use a truck and ladder to hang a flower wreath from Mary’s outstretched arm. Pope Benedict offered a huge basket of pink roses draped with a white and yellow ribbon — the Vatican colors.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — World leaders, governments and citizens must use their power to come to the aid of the poor and oppressed, Pope Benedict XVI said in his weekly general audience. God who lives on high chooses to side with the lowly and humble, turning his attention to them "with affection while he turns his gaze away from the pompous as a sign of rejection and judgment," said the pope. "God, therefore, makes the choice to align himself in defense of the weak, the victims," a choice that is "made known to the kings" and "to all governments, to all of us that we, too, must know which side to choose ... that of the humble, the least, the poor and weak," he said in remarks apart from his text. In his Dec. 7 general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the pope dedicated his catechesis to Psalm 136, a hymn of thanksgiving for the everlasting kindness of the Lord.

ROME (CNS) — Properly understood, the Bible and evolutionary science are perfectly compatible, said an influential Jesuit magazine. To use religious arguments against evolution shows ignorance of the nature of the Bible, the magazine, La Civilta Cattolica, said in its Nov. 19 issue. On the other hand, science cannot pretend to exclude a divine role behind the creation of the world and man, it said. The magazine’s contents are reviewed prior to publication by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, and its views are thought to reflect Vatican opinion. In response to its own question — Is there really an opposition between the widely accepted theory of evolution and the account of creation in Scripture? — the magazine said: "The answer is no. And the reason is that the Bible is a book that does not try to give a scientific teaching, but a religious teaching."

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pro-life concerns must include protecting the poor and vulnerable and opposing unjust wars, said a U.S. nun who participated in an international congress hosted by the Vatican. "If we want to be serious about creating a culture of life, we need to now think beyond things like abortion and euthanasia," said Holy Family Sister Carol Taylor, who directs the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University in Washington. Sister Taylor, who also teaches nursing at the university, spoke to Catholic News Service Nov. 18 during a congress to review how ethical norms of Catholic teaching could better permeate modern science and its new challenges.

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (CNS) — Nearly eight decades after being killed by the government for their role in a Catholic uprising in Mexico, 13 martyrs were beatified before tens of thousands in Guadalajara’s Jalisco Stadium. "They are a permanent example, a stimulus for defending the faith and having faith in current society," Pope Benedict XVI said in a video message projected on huge screens in the stadium. The pope, unlike his predecessor, does not preside over beatification liturgies. Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes, presided over the Mass for an estimated 55,000 chanting and singing people. Eight of the martyrs were from Jalisco state, and veneration of the martyrs is especially widespread there.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — One of the Vatican’s most popular tourist attractions is about to celebrate its 500th anniversary with a special series of stamps, concerts, Masses and a 450-mile march. The Swiss Guard officially turns 500 Jan. 22, the anniversary of the arrival in Rome of 150 Swiss soldiers recruited to serve and protect Pope Julius II. The Vatican’s commemorative stamps, featuring artwork by former guard Rudolf Mirer, went on sale Nov. 22 at the Vatican and in Switzerland, marking the first Vatican-Swiss stamp package. Also in anticipation of the anniversary, a history of the Guard written by Sgt. Christian-Roland Marcel Richard was released Nov. 9. Col. Elmar Mader, commander of the Guard, said Richard’s work marked the first time that an active guard published a book describing life in the corps.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a further sign of improved Vatican-Vietnamese relations, Pope Benedict XVI established a new diocese in Vietnam and appointed its first bishop. The new Diocese of Ba Ria, southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, was created with territory taken from the Diocese of Xuan Loc. Announcing the changes Nov. 22, the Vatican said Pope Benedict named Bishop Thomas Nguyen Van Tram, 63, a Xuan Loc auxiliary bishop, to head the new diocese. The Vietnamese government insists on approving the nomination of new bishops and sets limits on the operation of seminaries in the country. The new diocese includes an estimated 224,000 Catholics out of a population of just over 900,000 people; 56 diocesan priests, 35 religious-order priests and 406 women religious work in the diocese.

PERTH, Australia (CNS) — Tensions between the Catholic Church and the Australian government increased as hundreds of thousands of people joined street demonstrations against proposed changes in Australian labor laws. Two opposite views of how the family can best be protected emerged from the dispute. Kevin Andrews, Australia’s workplace relations minister and a Catholic who won widespread respect for his successful campaign to defeat the legalization of euthanasia in 1997, said the government’s proposed employment laws will be good for families because they will lead to a stronger economy and more jobs. But prominent critics within the church and the community disagree with Andrews. In an interview Nov. 17 with The Record, a weekly of the Archdiocese of Perth, Bishop Kevin Manning of Parramatta, Australia, said he had respect for Andrews, but questioned the minister’s ability to reverse a policy he described as "very much a concern" for Catholics. Bishop Manning said "no one has the right just to use human beings as commodities, which I’m afraid is what this legislation is going to bring about."

SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) — Despite objections from Catholic social justice and civil rights groups, the Australian government plans to push through new anti-terrorism laws. Calling for more debate about implications of the proposed laws, the chairman of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome, Australia, said the arrests of 17 Muslim men in Sydney and Melbourne in early November on charges of plotting a London-style bomb attack showed that existing anti-terrorism legislation and solid police work are adequate to deal with the threat of an imminent attack on Australian soil. "The proposed legislation is complex, and it could have far-reaching consequences for the civil and political rights that all Australians presently enjoy," said Bishop Saunders. "To push for the approval of the bill before Christmas will undermine proper parliamentary review and rule out the possibility of adequate public input." The proposed legislation introduces preventative detention without charge, home detention and tracking devices and extension of "stop, question and search" and "shoot-to-kill" powers.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (CNS) — Dorothy Lemke vividly remembers the despair she saw on people’s faces the first time she ran out of eyeglasses. A Jefferson City optician at the time, she had fitted 169 people in a town on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with eyewear that had been discarded in her office. "After I finished, there was still a mass of people looking sadly back at me," she said. "I still can’t forget that look. It just intensified this burning inside of me." Now, almost a quarter-century after she first traveled to the region around Merida, capital of the Mexican state of Yucatan, Lemke and her husband, Rudy, are directing a foundation to benefit the area. The Merida Foundation, a charitable corporation founded and funded by the Lemkes, supports a number of efforts on behalf of the poor. When Dorothy Lemke first went to Mexico in 1982, she found a reason for keeping all those used pairs of glasses collected back home. She returned to Missouri and immediately began making plans for another trip to Merida, carrying about 600 pairs of glasses.

PISCATAWAY, N.J. (CNS) — The Metuchen Diocese has inaugurated an adoption assistance program for employees that offers both financial assistance and paid time off, believed to be the first such program in any U.S. Catholic diocese. The diocese also held its first Mass to celebrate adoption, drawing 300 people, nearly half of them children. Adoptive families filled the chapel at St. John Neumann Pastoral Center in Piscataway Nov. 21. The Mass, which also marked November as National Adoption Awareness Month, was sponsored by the newly formed diocesan Adoption Assistance Committee. Metuchen Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski, principal celebrant, smiled as he spoke above the cacophony of babies’ and young children’s voices. He welcomed all present and thanked parents "for being open to life, to the gift of children, to the choice of raising children."

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Children in Catholic schools and religious education programs across the country raised more than $1 million to assist students affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes. The money was raised through "Child to Child: A Catholic Campaign to Aid Education," sponsored by the National Catholic Educational Association. The campaign collected dollar contributions from students to help children in areas ravaged by the storms and areas impacted by large numbers of evacuee students. A Dec. 7 news release said that by Dec. 2 the contributions totaled $1.04 million from 1,254 schools and religious education programs.

INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) — The selflessness of two third-graders will bring Christmas joy to hundreds of children in the Indianapolis area. Lilly Barkes of Nativity Catholic School in Indianapolis decided not to ask for gifts for her ninth birthday in November and instead organized a school toy drive to benefit the Catholic Charities Christmas store in Indianapolis. Jessica Rikke, Lilly’s friend and classmate, made the same request for her December birthday and asked for an early birthday party during the Thanksgiving weekend to collect toys. Although the girls had hoped to gather 200 toys, the school’s 340 students — in pre-kindergarten to eighth grade — brought in 366 toys.

ST. LOUIS (CNS) — Father Gerry Kleba was hoping to find 200 friends to help him celebrate a milestone. The pastor of St. Cronan Parish in South St. Louis was seeking a couple hundred people willing to donate blood Dec. 4 to mark the priest’s donation of his 200th pint of blood. Being a blood donor is a way of being pro-life, Father Kleba told the St. Louis Review, archdiocesan newspaper. "It guarantees you save a life, maybe more than one." The slogan for blood donation, he said, could be: "No greater love has anyone than to stick out an arm for their friends."

SPARTA, N.J. (CNS) — A Catholic high school named for Pope John XXIII, who sought to bring the light of the church into the modern world, is dealing with a very modern matter — Internet safety that is being compromised by personal Web logs, known as blogs. Through Internet sites such as myspace.com, xanga.com and friendster.com, students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta and many from all over the country had been posting their photos, daily thoughts and interests to share with others. But Msgr. Kieran McHugh, president of the Paterson diocesan high school, told students at a recent assembly that the school has banned Internet blogging in the school and at the students’ homes. "All these sites are havens for predators," he said. "The reason for the school’s stand is to comply with the (Diocese of Paterson’s) policy of protecting God’s children."

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When St. Louis Cardinals’ star pitcher Jeff Suppan flew to Rome to meet Pope Benedict XVI, he planned to present the pope with a team jersey "because the pope had been a cardinal," too. But Suppan said Pope Benedict never received the white and red baseball shirt "because my luggage was lost" on the flight to Rome. "I was wearing the same clothes for three days," Suppan told Catholic News Service. Instead, when the current Cardinals’ player met the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the end of the pontiff’s weekly general audience Nov. 9, Suppan just kissed the pope’s ring. Suppan said he did not know what to say because "it was emotional for me. I was nervous in a different way. I’ve never been nervous before. I don’t really know how to describe it. ... It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) — Meet Team Peters: Mom, Mary; Dad, Mark; 12-year-old Michael; 11-year-old Daniel; 9-year-old Emily; 7-year-old twins, Will and Tom; and 6-year-old Clare. The Peters are parishioners at St. Matthew Church in Franklin, and all of the children attend St. Matthew School. They all run cross country too. The family takes having fun at running very seriously. The Peters children participate in the Nashville diocesan cross-country running program, representing St. Matthew Church, and Mary and Mark Peters are coaches of the parish team.

LAFOLLETTE, Tenn. (CNS) — An assistant principal killed in a shooting at his public high school was a loving husband and father, a respected educator and a faithful member of his small parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in LaFollette, said his pastor. Ken Bruce, 48, was killed in a shooting Nov. 8 at Campbell County High School in Jacksboro. The school’s principal and another assistant principal were seriously wounded. Father Joe Campbell, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, said Bruce was a eucharistic minister and "always at all the dinners and all the functions" at the 85-family parish located 40 miles north of Knoxville.

OAKLAND, Calif. (CNS) — Six years after she fell in the love with the "garden of learning" at St. Elizabeth School in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, Monette Meo has succeeded in building a similar garden "one coffee cup at a time" at her own children’s school, St. Perpetua in Lafayette. To fund the garden, the Lafayette school opened a Friday-morning "cafe" to sell hot beverages and baked goods to early-morning Massgoers and students’ parents. But long before there was any cafe or garden at St. Perpetua, Meo was introduced to St. Elizabeth’s garden in 1999, when she was a classroom aide there. She saw the garden as a teaching template not only for science, but also for religion, ecology, art, history, sociology and as a tasty allurement to coax kids off the fast-food track. She helped students harvest tomatoes, peppers, onions and herbs to make salsa for the whole school.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — For most Americans, Nov. 19 passed without any special significance. But for the 45.8 million people in the United States without health insurance and for leaders in Catholic health care nationwide, the date marked 60 years of failed efforts to achieve some sort of national health reform that would result in universal coverage. In a special message to Congress on Nov. 19, 1945, President Harry S. Truman became the first U.S. president to call for such a plan, proposing that Social Security be expanded to include mandatory medical insurance. Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is the new president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, sees the anniversary as "a dramatic reminder of how we continue to tolerate the intolerable."

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (CNS) — In Mike Stanley’s world, there’s a profound link between his magic and his faith. "I say that the magic is in you and me, and we have to use the gifts and talents God gives us," said Stanley, an Ithaca resident. How true that is for the troupe that Stanley guides. He is founder of the Cayuga Wizards, a group of developmentally disabled young adults who maximize their talents through performing magic. Stanley, 62, formed the Wizards three years ago. He said his primary goal was to start an activity that would raise the self-esteem of his daughter Michelle, 24, who has Down syndrome. Now the unit has grown to 11 people — eight with Down syndrome, one who is deaf and two with other physical limitations. The Wizards train regularly at Stanley’s home. Their extensive repertoire incorporates tricks using coins, silks, cards and ropes — and there is even a live-rabbit trick.