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• Joel's soul | Former First Baptist preacher has found grace in black churches (The Dallas Morning News)
• Jake Hess, 76, gospel pioneer and inspiration to Presley, dies | Hess was the string that tied together many of Christian music's most famous quartets and ensembles (The New York Times)
• Christian band was GI's dream | Sergeant killed in Iraq hoped to become a cop (Chicago Tribune)

Pope John Paul II:

• Pope urges building a democratic Iraq | Pope John Paul II put aside his opposition to the U.S.-led invasion against Saddam Hussein on Monday and urged the international community to help build a democratic Iraq (Associated Press)
• Biographer to speak on 'soul' of pope | Pope John Paul II has defined the papacy for his successors, says George Weigel, a papal biographer and a scholar in religion and culture (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
• Why the next pope needs to be Italian | In general, at least in the past 100 years, an Italian pope, precisely because he has been trained in a proud political school like the Vatican, guarantees a more nuanced distance from politics and a warmer pastoral mission (Roberto Pazzi, The New York Times)
• Pope cancels his Ash Wednesday service | Instead, the pope will preside over a prayer ceremony, which will include a blessing and smudging of the ashes on the faithful in a Vatican auditorium (Associated Press)
• Pope wants priest-parishioner distinction | Says priests must draw the line between public opinion and their clerical duty, an issue that has become more pressing as the Church deals with sex abuse scandals in the United States and around the world (Associated Press)

Catholicism:

• Jury selection begins in bishop's trial | A judge told prospective jurors Monday in the hit-and-run trial of Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas O'Brien that they can be fair and impartial even if they have already heard a lot about the case (Associated Press)
• Backlash to church grows, says gay body | A backlash is growing in the Catholic Church against the Vatican "demonising and dehumanising" homosexuals, a spokesman for the Rainbow Sash movement said yesterday (The Age, Melbourne, Australia)
• Church refuses confession change | The Catholic Church today backed the absolute silence of the Confessional despite criticism the practice encouraged pedophile priests (The Australian)
• Neb. diocese won't partake in study | The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lincoln won't participate in a national study tracking sexual abuse in the church, making it the only diocese in the nation to refuse to take part. (Associated Press)
• Catholic high texts to be pulled | Most are flawed, N.O. Archbishop Hughes advises (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)
• Bishop who quit for love fights cancer | Roddy Wright, the former Roman Catholic bishop who deserted the Church to marry one of his parishioners, is fighting for his life in New Zealand (The Scotsman)
• Court lets suit against archdiocese go forward | The Archdiocese of Milwaukee must answer in a California court for transferring a molesting priest to Orange County, where he was accused of molesting again (The Sacramento Bee)

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January (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48