U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito voiced frustration Tuesday over what he called persistent questions about the court's Roman Catholic majority. Alito aired the topic in a speech to an Italian-American law group in Philadelphia. "There has been so much talk lately about the number of Catholics serving on the Supreme Court," Alito said in a speech to the Justinian Society. "This is one of those questions that does not die." Alito complained about "respectable people who have seriously raised the questions in serious publications about whether these individuals could be trusted to do their jobs." He said he thought the Constitution settled the question long ago with its guarantee of religious freedom.

Though neither of us realized it at the time, new U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Miguel Diaz and I met on a propitious day for Diaz's boss, President Barack Obama. A little over two hours after our interview ended, news broke that Obama had been awarded the Noble Peace Prize. One of the first global institutions to issue its congratulations was the Vatican, which expressed "appreciation" for the choice and encouraged what it described as Obama's commitment to "peace in the international arena," especially nuclear disarmament. All in all, not a bad day for Obama's man at the Vatican.

The Tablet of London reported in early September that George Weigel has been bringing to Polish Catholics his criticism of the "incoherent sentimentalism" of Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. Apparently Weigel claims that since the encyclical does not represent the pope's views, Catholics should remain faithful to the "pro-capitalist teachings" of their countryman Pope John Paul II.

In a two-month period, Rome sent American Catholics two clear signals. One was on engagement -- the historic meeting of President Barack Obama with Pope Benedict XVI on July 10. The other signal was on the resignation of Scranton, Pa., Bishop Joseph F. Martino on Aug. 31. For the past decade there has been considerable discussion centered around two words: engagement and confrontation. These two words are at the heart of the question of how American Catholics respond in a pluralistic democracy to policies that run counter to Catholic teachings. Engagement emphasizes the use of strategy to convince the other side about the validity of a position and being civil about it. Confrontation on the other hand represents firm opposition to any civil discussion of the issue on the basis that the issue is non-negotiable. The actual matter energizing these discussions is abortion. While there are other issues, they do not ignite the passion as abortion does.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, said he is convinced there is wide potential for cooperation between the Vatican and the administration of President Barack Obama, particularly in areas of intercultural and interreligious dialogue. To kick things off, the U.S. embassy to the Holy See and Caritas Internationalis are co-sponsoring an international conference in Rome on pediatric HIV/AIDS in mid-October. Diaz said he has already begun exploring additional collaborative possibilities with other Vatican agencies.

Last November at their post-election meeting, a vocal minority of bishops lamented the election results, aghast that not only a majority of Americans, but more tellingly a majority of Catholics, had voted to make Barack Obama President of the United States. So extreme were the comments of these few bishops that some could easily have confused them with Republican ward-heelers, and be prone to the fear that a new "Republican Captivity" of our Church was in full force. A lot of the bishops' hysteria at their November meeting was over that great Republican bogeyman, the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which was not a part of the Democratic platform, and had absolutely no priority among the issues facing the new administration. This did not prevent the public lamentations of select bishops on how FOCA would force Catholic hospitals to close - despite the insistence of the Catholic Health Association to the contrary.

For suddenly departing politicians and CEOs, the standard line is to "spend time with family." Now the Catholic Church may have its own version of this unconvincing, stock answer. On Aug. 31, Joseph Martino, the controversial bishop from Scranton, Pa., stunned longtime church watchers by announcing that he was resigning his post because of problems with insomnia and fatigue. The Catholic leader, who has gained national prominence for his outspoken pro-life advocacy and aggressive criticism of pro-choice Democratic politicians, is still more than a decade away from reaching the church's automatic retirement age of 75. Martino's abrupt resignation, along with the fact that he was not reassigned to another position within the church, has some church insiders suggesting that the highly unusual move was far from voluntary - and quite possibly the work of a Vatican that has been decidedly less openly critical of the Obama Administration.

A Pennsylvania Catholic bishop whose public scoldings of politicians--including Vice President Joe Biden--created a stir nationwide resigned on Monday (Aug. 31), citing stress and lack of confidence in his leadership. Bishop Joseph Martino was appointed in 2003 to head the Diocese of Scranton, a heavily Catholic corner of northeastern Pennsylvania. His relatively brief tenure was marked by battles with local parishes, a teachers union, college administrators and a number of politicians, particularly over abortion rights. "For some time now, there has not been a clear consensus among the clergy and the people of the diocese of Scranton regarding my pastoral initiatives or my way of governance," Martino said Monday at a press conference. The Vatican appointed Cardinal Justin Rigali, archbishop of Philadelphia, as temporary head of the Scranton diocese, which encompasses about 350,000 Catholics in 11 counties.

A Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut that has fought for years to prevent the release of documents generated by lawsuits against priests for alleged sexual abuse wants conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to take up the case. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Tuesday ruled the documents cannot remain sealed until the full court decides whether to review the case. On Friday, attorneys for Diocese of Bridgeport asked that Scalia, a Catholic, reconsider its request to continue a stay on the release of the papers. "The appeal to the court's most stridently Catholic member, whose son is a priest, smacks of desperation and favoritism," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The right to life is a paramount and pre-eminent moral issue of our time. The Catholic bishops have borne a consistent and prophetic witness to the truth that all other rights are anchored in the right to life. When Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973, this conference was nearly alone among institutional voices pointing out the defects and dangers of this decision and calling for its reversal. Our witness to the sanctity of human life cannot diminish and our effort cannot cease. We must continue to enlist new vehicles of communication to highlight the grave moral evil inherent in abortion. We have to design effective and imaginative strategies to help people see that the choice for life is the most compassionate choice. And we have to speak with courtesy and clarity about why the protection of the unborn is a requirement of human rights and not their diminishment.