Representatives of 14 Catholic organizations met with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team yesterday in Washington. The Catholic groups presented members of the transition team with a list of policy concerns in the areas of international development and trade, health care reform, immigration, domestic policy and poverty reduction, and the environment. The presentations and policy discussion that followed were based on "Platform for the Common Good," a consensus document that came from a convention the groups hosted this summer in Philadelphia called the "Convention for the Common Good." The Catholic groups gave the transition team copies of the document, which, they say, advocates policies that are "enlivened by the Gospel message of hope and the wisdom of Catholic social teaching."

Michael Walzer, retired professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, argued that free market competition forces people to break the rules of decent conduct. Attempting to justify this behavior leads to self-deception that corrodes moral character, he said. Competition is not, however, only a negative force, Walzer added. Cooperation in economic enterprises produces mutual respect, friendship and solidarity, and people learn how to take risks and forge alliances. Walzer proposed limitations on economic power and markets so as to reduce the corrosion due to market forces.

In a resounding confirmation that the Catholic church's pro-life concern extends to the brave new world of biotechnology, the Vatican today issued a tough document condemning the freezing of human embryos, genetic engineering, human cloning, animal/human genetic hybrids, and a number of other procedures described as affronts to human dignity. The document also reiterates existing bans on embryonic stem cell research, in-vitro fertilization, and the "morning after pill." In places, Vatican rhetoric is biting. The document charges that human cloning risks "biological slavery," that some biotech procedures reflect a "shameful and utterly reprehensible... eugenic mentality," and that widespread practice of IVF, which typically involves the destruction of unused embryos, implies "blithe acceptance" of an "enormous number of abortions." Its concern is not merely laying out moral teaching but also shaping social and political debates, citing an "urgent need to mobilize consciences in favor of life."

As a rising number of Americans sign up for unemployment benefits, many of the state-funded trusts that pay them are on the decline. At least 12 of them are on the brink of insolvency. In 20 other states, the funds have lost value, even before the big job losses of the past two months. While unemployed workers will get their benefits - federal law requires it - the trust fund woes are putting states into a peculiar squeeze. They're loath to raise taxes or cut services in a recession, so many are racking up new loans. That debt burden will affect residents for years to come. The demand for benefits, meanwhile, is likely to soar.

Building peace and eradicating poverty demand an overhaul of shortsighted financial policies and unjust economic and social structures, Pope Benedict XVI said. In his annual message for the Jan. 1 celebration of the World Day of Peace, the pope said "peace can be built only if everyone is assured the possibility of reasonable growth: Sooner or later, the distortions produced by unjust systems have to be paid for by everyone." The world of finance and commerce need global governance and a new ethical approach that can ensure that investments and development truly contribute to the common good and peace in the world, he said. The message, "Fighting Poverty to Build Peace," was sent to heads of state around the world and was released Dec. 11 at a Vatican press conference. The pope said that while globalization has brought many benefits it must be governed and "managed with great prudence."

Calling for "compassionate dialogue" on immigration reform, the Minnesota Catholic Conference announced that Jan. 4 will be "Immigration Sunday" in the state's parishes. The conference, the public policy voice of the Roman Catholic Church in Minnesota, made the announcement Tuesday to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Swift and Co. meatpacking plant in Worthington. The conference said that fallout from that raid and others has had "a devastating impact on immigrant families and our rural communities."

This year's economic crisis could help people rediscover the true meaning of Christmas and the values of life, love and charity, Pope Benedict XVI said. After the "consumerist and materialistic scales have been shed, Christmas can then become an occasion to accept as a personal gift the message of hope that comes from the mystery of Christ's birth," he said at his general audience Dec. 17. The pope dedicated the talk at his last general audience of the year to the importance and meaning of the Advent and Christmas seasons. Christmas celebrates the gift of life, which is sometimes fragile or in danger, he said. As Christians contemplate the birth of Christ in a lowly grotto, "how can we not think about the many children who, still today, are born into enormous poverty in many parts of the world?" asked the pope.

Church-state separation is one of the signs of the progress of humanity, says Benedict XVI. The Pope affirmed this Saturday when he visited the Italian embassy to the Holy See. The Church "not only recognizes and respects the distinction and autonomy" of the state vis-a-vis the Church, but also "takes joy in this as one of the great advances of humanity," he said. This separation is "a fundamental condition for [the Church's] very liberty and the fulfillment of its universal mission of salvation among all peoples," the Holy Father added. "This brief visit is conducive to reaffirming that the Church is very aware that the distinction between what is of Caesar and what is of God belongs to the fundamental structure of Christianity."

The Supreme Court on Monday revived a lawsuit brought by four former prisoners at Guantanamo Bay against Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, and other officials. The former prisoners, all British citizens, say they were tortured and subjected to religious persecution. In a brief order, the justices instructed a federal appeals court to take a second look at the case in light of the Supreme Court's decision in June in Boumediene v. Bush granting Guantanamo prisoners the right to challenge their detention in federal court. The appeals court, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruled against the men in January, saying that neither the Constitution nor a federal law protecting religious freedom gave them the right to sue in American courts.

The Vatican's first authoritative statement on reproductive science in 21 years triggered intense debate yesterday about some of the most contentious issues in modern biological research, including stem cells, designer babies, cloning, and a host of techniques widely used to prevent pregnancy and to help infertile couples have children. The broad 32-page document, from the Catholic Church's highest rule-making authority, condemns as immoral the destruction of human embryos to obtain stem cells or treat infertility, and denounces any attempts at more futuristic possibilities such as cloning people or using gene therapy to enhance the human race.

President-elect Obama, the Democratic-controlled Congress, and the independent Federal Reserve are all considering new ways to stabilize the housing market. Although economists don't see easy fixes, many say that reviving the economy now hinges not just on bank or auto rescues, not just on a broad new stimulus package from Washington, but also on targeted policies that give a boost to individual homeowners or home buyers. "Policy steps should include foreclosure mitigation," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa. "It certainly helps people more directly than giving banks equity infusions." And by helping to stabilize the housing market, such an effort should help restore order in the banking system and the broader economy, he says.

Responding to concerns from their followers, a dozen interfaith leaders from across Metro Detroit announced Thursday they will conduct national lobbying to urge members of Congress to back loans for Detroit's Big Three auto manufacturers and set up an information network about the social services they provide. "Some of us have larger, national denominations and we can contact those members of Congress who are straddling the fence," said Bishop Charles Ellis of Greater Grace Temple in Detroit. "We can use our constituents in those communities to influence those people." The leaders gathered at the behest of Cardinal Adam Maida and said they were troubled by the worries, indeed the near panic, expressed to them by many of their followers about the economy in Metro Detroit.

Some 100 nations signed a major anti-cluster bomb treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, during a conference that began Dec. 3 in Oslo, Norway. It is a move that supporters hope will shame the United States, Russia, China, Israel and other non-signers into abandoning weapons blamed for maiming and killing thousands of innocent civilians. Norway was first to sign, followed by Laos and Lebanon, both hard-hit by the weapons. The Holy See not only signed the treaty but ratified it. The Vatican said by ratifying the treaty on the same day it was signed, it wanted "to give a strong political signal." Pope Benedict XVI voiced support for the treaty effort in mid-May. The drive to ban cluster bombs gathered momentum after Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006, when it scattered some 4 million bomblets over Lebanon.

San Francisco's archbishop has appealed to people on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue to be tolerant of each other, to "disagree without being disagreeable" and not presume to know "the real motives" behind people's viewpoint. "We need to stop hurling names like 'bigot' and 'pervert' at each other. And we need to stop it now," Archbishop George H. Niederauer said Dec. 1 in an open letter. Voters in the state Nov. 4 passed a ballot initiative called Proposition 8, which is a constitutional amendment to define marriage as only "valid and recognized" if between a man and a woman. Since Election Day there have been vigorous protests against the outcome in California and around the country by gay rights supporters.

Advocates for immigrants here demanded an investigation Tuesday into a series of federal raids last month that they said left at least six Guatemalan men bloodied and bruised in a roundup of nearly 100 people. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied all accusations of misconduct by agents in the raids on Nov. 19 in three South Florida counties, noting that the operation focused on sex trafficking and led to charges against seven people and the release of several women. But lawyers working with other detainees said they were concerned that the agency was using human trafficking laws as a front for broader operations, and a cover for harsh tactics.

Suddenly beset by the worst monthly layoffs since 1974, Americans are starting to struggle with how to find employment for the millions who are losing jobs in the recession. Should government spend billions on retraining programs, create tax incentives for businesses that hire new workers, fund green infrastructure projects, or just provide massive Depression-era make-work programs? The answers to those questions will involve a key issue: whether the unemployed will have the right skills and be in the right location to take advantage of new jobs. President-elect Obama has described the outlines of a recovery plan that would create more than 2 million jobs. On Saturday, in a weekly radio address, he cited plans to upgrade roads and schools as part of what would be the biggest infrastructure investment since the 1950s.

After an emotional, rancorous debate over torture and academic freedom, Berkeley's City Council passed a measure late Monday night imploring the United States to prosecute Berkeley resident and former White House official John Yoo for war crimes. Yoo, a tenured professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, wrote the legal memos justifying torture during the interrogation of terrorism suspects when he served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Bush administration in 2001-03. "John Yoo took a material involvement in the deaths and torture of untold numbers of people," said Councilman Max Anderson, choking back tears during the council's debate. "The broken bodies, the broken spirits, the broken trust he wrought with his actions - that's why they call these crimes against humanity." Yoo could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

At the final session of the Faith Angle conference today, two prominent survey researchers, John C. Green and Anna Greenberg, examined a variety of polling data about the relationship between religious affiliation and voting behavior in this year's presidential election. The chart above shows the bottom line, and reinforces patterns that have been in place for at least the last two decades -- Democrats are favored by minority ethnic and religious groups, as well as by less observant white Christians, while Republicans are favored by more observant white Christians. The chart was generated by Green (left), who is a political science professor at the University of Akron, and also a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which is the sponsor of the conference.

First on the Obama administration's to-do list: a stimulus package, bailouts, and... abortion? Given the imperatives of the economic crisis, picking an abortion fight early on would seem highly unlikely. But the Roman Catholic Church is coordinating a national postcard campaign next month to oppose the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Abortion opponents fear the new Democratic majority in Washington could succeed in passing the decades-old bill and Barack Obama would make good on what he told Planned Parenthood in July: "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." The bill could wipe out federal and state restrictions on abortion such as parental notification and informed consent laws. Some say FOCA is so broad it would also imperil "conscience clauses" that protect hospitals and doctors who refuse to perform abortions because of their convictions. That's led some Catholic leaders to threaten to close their hospitals if FOCA forced them to provide abortions.

Catholic Church officials from 38 countries have launched a campaign with more than 170 Catholic organizations to persuade the United Nations to meet the "moral obligation" of tackling climate change. "Climate change is a reality today affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions in developing countries by exacerbating storms, droughts and natural disasters," said an appeal signed by 92 bishops, archbishops and cardinals. "As a matter of equity and responsibility, those who have created the problem must pay for the solution. Economically developed nations have a moral obligation to tackle climate change because of their disproportionate consumption of natural resources," it said. The climate campaign and related appeal were launched by Caritas Internationalis, which represents 162 national Caritas church charities, and CIDSE, a Belgian-based alliance of 16 Catholic development agencies.

Connecticut has embraced faith-based services, one of the initiatives to come out of the Bush administration after it created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001. Eleven federal agencies took up the charge, making federal money and support more accessible to faith-based and community organizations. Although Connecticut officials champion the idea, saying it has improved access to treatment for thousands of people who might not have succeeded in traditional substance abuse programs, the practice of giving taxpayer money to religious organizations is hardly without critics. "A lot of these programs contain a significant amount of evangelizing or proselytizing, and from our position that type of outreach should never be funded with taxpayer dollars," says Rob Boston, senior policy analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

As the roster of corporations and financial institutions in line for government bailouts seems to grow, some public-policy advocates in Washington are calling on policymakers to focus more efforts on the nation's poorest. The ranks of the destitute are growing quietly but alarmingly as much of the world focuses on troubles surrounding Wall Street. "Recent data show poverty is already rising quite substantially," says Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "There is a strong potential for more hardship and destitution than we have seen in this country in a number of decades."

After decades of failed efforts to reshape the nation's healthcare system, a consensus appears to be emerging in Washington about how to achieve the elusive goal of providing medical insurance to all Americans. The answer, say leading groups of businesses, hospitals, doctors, labor unions and insurance companies -- as well as senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the new Obama administration -- is unprecedented government intervention to create a system of universal protection. At the same time, those groups, which span the ideological and political spectrum, largely have agreed to preserve the employer-based system through which most Americans get their health insurance. The idea of a federal, single-payer system patterned on those in Europe and Canada, long a dream of the political left, is now virtually off the table.

Barack Obama should act from the moment of his inauguration to restore a U.S. image battered by allegations of torturing terrorism suspects, said a group of retired military leaders planning to press their case with the president-elect's transition team on Wednesday. "We need to remove the stain, and the stain is on us, as well as on our reputation overseas," said retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, former Navy inspector general. Gunn and about a dozen other retired generals and admirals, who are scheduled to meet Obama's team in Washington, said they plan to offer a list of anti-torture principles, including some that could be implemented immediately.

About the only thing everyone with a stake in it is likely to agree on about the Freedom of Choice Act is that the legislation has languished in Congress for 20 years, only once rising -- just barely -- above the fate of hundreds of bills that are introduced each session and never heard from again. What's harder to nail down is whether the bill, known as FOCA, is going anywhere under the 111th Congress that begins in January. Although there was no effort in the 110th Congress to move the bill along, pro-life organizations have since the summer been sounding the alarm about what would happen to current restrictions on abortion if a Democrat was elected president.