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As the Roman Catholic Church observes its annual "respect life" Sunday in this heated presidential election season, the unusually pitched competition for Catholic voters is setting off a round of skirmishes over how to apply the church's teachings not only on abortion but also on the war in Iraq, immigration and racism. In a departure from previous elections, Democrats and liberal Catholic groups are waging a fight within the church, arguing that the Democratic Party better reflects the full spectrum of church teachings. The escalating efforts by more-liberal Catholics are provoking a vigorous backlash from some bishops and the right. In response, a coalition of liberal lay Catholics is pushing back, criticizing the bishop's message for neglecting other aspects of "life" talked about in Catholic social teachings, like concern for the poor.

Nearly 2,000 members of 40 houses of worship in Northern Virginia are expected at a public meeting tomorrow in Dumfries to launch an interfaith organization that will seek commitments from public officials to do more to help the poor in the area. The organization, Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement, or VOICE, is asking local, state and federal officials to increase funding for affordable housing and health care and to ease the backlog of U.S. citizen applications in Northern Virginia. With a collective membership of 120,000 people, the congregations making up VOICE could prove to be a potent political force in Northern Virginia. Until now, interfaith efforts there have not been as influential or as diverse as in Maryland or the District.

Most U.S. mayors and city officials say poverty is a growing problem, with many families unable to get by, according to a survey released on Monday. Some 90 percent of city officials in the National League of Cities survey of mayors and leaders of towns of 30,000 people or more say that during the last decade poverty rates have either increased or stayed the same in their towns. About a third of those participating consider poverty "a severe or serious problem" in their cities. "More than four decades after the United States government declared 'war' on poverty, the 'official' 2008 poverty rate is 12.3 percent, not even 2 percent less than the 1967 figure of 14.2 per cent," the report said.

Catholic voters considering how to cast their presidential ballots should judge candidates by their passion for building a safer and more humane world, especially for the poor and the weak, retired Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and others told an audience at Loyola University this week. And while the Catholic church believes a candidate's stand on abortion is gravely important -- Archbishop Alfred Hughes has called it "foundational" -- it also urges its members to examine candidates' positions on other serious issues such as torture, war and contempt for the poor, McCarrick said. With more than 60 million members, Catholics are the largest religious voting bloc in the country. But political scientists have long known there is no monolithic "Catholic vote." The church by long practice does not recommend a candidate.

Bishops who make a case for one-issue politics or openly oppose a political candidate are in violation of the guidelines set out repeatedly in their own documents on political responsibility, said noted theologian Fr. Richard McBrien in a recent talk here. 1. Although bishops and other Catholic officials have the constitutional right to participate in public policy debates and in the political process generally, they impose certain limits upon themselves as a matter of prudence. 2. Catholic voters and their bishops should examine the positions of the candidates on the full range of issues as well as their integrity, philosophy and performance. 3. Catholic voters and their bishops must not forget the distinction between moral principles and their application in the political order. It is possible to agree on an important moral principle and yet disagree, in good conscience, on the way that principle is applied in the political order. 4. Because there is a distinction between the moral law and the civil law, Catholics and others--Christians and non-Christians alike--cannot expect that every element of the moral law, as they understand it, can or should be translated into civil law. 5. Given the principle of sacramentality, in the final analysis the most effective way for the church and its members--or for anyone--to influence public policy is by force of their own example.

Insufficient food production is one factor in the food crisis hitting much of the developing world - yet it is also true that some African farmers see 70 percent of their production lost before it reaches the market. And irrigation will be part of the answer to feeding hungry populations - even though in much of Africa 90 percent of freshwater already goes to agriculture. Solving such conundrums will be the key to meeting the world's food needs, says Henrietta Fore, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, or USAID. The world faces a food security crisis that this year spawned riots in parts of the developing world, and is expected to challenge the world's poor with high prices for at least the next half-decade, she says.

The every-four-year national skirmish among Catholics over abortion politics is as predictable as a politician's smile. But this year a few "game changers," in the phrase of the season, have altered the conversation within the Catholic community and for the wider culture. For the first time since the abortion issue began to dominate the Catholic political discussion 35 years ago, groups have organized and high-profile Catholics have gone public to insist that Catholic teaching does not prohibit a vote for a pro-choice politician. Much to the contrary, in fact, groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United note that the teaching explicitly prohibits bishops from endorsing or opposing specific candidates, from instructing Catholics on how to vote or from arguing that Catholics need consider only one issue in determining how to vote.

For Citymeals-on-Wheels, a nonprofit group that delivers food to homebound New Yorkers, the Wall Street crisis already means 100,000 fewer meals will be delivered to people who need them. After Citymeals-on-Wheels cut back its program, some elderly people began receiving one meal a day instead of two. "You know the next day you got a meal coming, so you don't have to worry, then all of a sudden it's not there," said Dorothy Skinner, 82, a retired special-education aide who lives alone in Manhattan. "It really hits you." Across New York, nonprofit organizations are anxiously tracking the demise of longtime donors such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group and Bear Stearns, as Wall Street's problems begin to trickle down to the city's poorest residents.

During the next four weeks, Immigration activists plan to swarm through nearly 700 Chicago-area neighborhoods, visiting some homes several times in a $1 million effort to pull at least 140,000 voters into the polls for the Nov. 4 elections, organizers announced Tuesday. The campaign, involving about 2,500 volunteers, is part of an aggressive last push across the country to sway the result of the presidential race and several congressional contests in the direction of Immigration reforms. "This is a serious campaign," said Juan Salgado, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which is coordinating the effort. "We have an agenda that's about democracy and living the best ideals of what this country is about."

While a strong majority of Americans support religion's role in public life, a solid majority also expresses opposition to churches coming out in favor of particular political candidates. Indeed, an August 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that two-thirds (66%) of the public opposes churches and other houses of worship speaking out in favor of one candidate over another. The high level of opposition to such endorsements is consistent with Pew polling conducted in recent years.