WASHINGTON (CNS) --- A new online survey conducted for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops finds a majority of participants support at least some restrictions on abortion. The survey conducted online Dec. 10-12 asked 2,341 people about the circumstances under which they would favor or oppose legal abortion and about what kind of regulations of abortion they would support or oppose. Among its findings were that 78 percent favor requiring abortions be performed only by licensed physicians and that 72 percent favor requiring women seeking abortions be told of the potential physical and psychological risks and about alternatives such as adoption. It found 11 percent think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and 38 percent said it should be legal only under limited circumstances, such as in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. Forty-two percent said abortion should be legal for any reason. The USCCB news release noted that Harris Interactive, which fielded the study for the USCCB, said the data was weighted using a propensity scoring system to be representative of the total U.S. population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity and propensity to be on the Internet. Harris said no estimates of sampling error could be calculated, according to the USCCB release.

100-day campaign will remind Obama of pledge to close Guantanamo
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Closure of the military prison at the U.S. Army base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be getting renewed attention during a 100-day campaign designed to hold President-elect Barack Obama to his campaign pledge to close the compound. On Jan. 11, the seventh anniversary of its opening, organizers of the 100 Days Campaign will begin a series of events including public witness, street theater, processions, lectures, prayer and fasting to call attention to Obama's promise that he would close the controversial prison. A Department of Defense spokesman said 250 detainees remain behind bars there. "We want to support Obama in following through on his commitment," campaign organizer Frida Berrigan told Catholic News Service. "We think he wants to do the right thing. He's going to need our support and we want to keep it visible so it's not forgotten." The concern, she said, is that closing the prison may be overlooked as the new administration addresses pressing issues such as the economy, home foreclosures, rising unemployment and the war in Iraq.

National bereavement ministry moves forward with new efforts in 2009
LEMAY, Mo. (CNS) --- Training materials in Spanish and an expanded presence on the Web are just two of the developments coming in 2009 from the National Catholic Ministry to the Bereaved. Founded in 1990, the ministry offers pastoral and spiritual support to the bereaved, caregivers, agencies, congregations, dioceses and others who work in bereavement ministry through education efforts and a bank of resources. Its headquarters are located at the Maria Center on the campus of the School Sisters of Notre Dame motherhouse in Lemay. Ingrid Seunarine, named president of the ministry in 2008, told the St. Louis Review archdiocesan newspaper that a Spanish-language manual for its ministry of consolation training program recently was published. The effort took about three years to complete, said Seunarine, who also is the director of bereavement services for the Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y. "Let's face it --- the Spanish-speaking community, right now, according to census information, is the most up-and-coming segment of the population," she said. "And we need to meet them where they're at. If the language is a problem, we need to be able to cut through that barrier."

Birth-control pill is linked to male infertility, says Vatican paper
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The birth-control pill is causing "devastating" environmental damage and plays a role in rising male infertility rates, said the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. "We have sufficient evidence to argue that one of the considerable factors contributing to male infertility in the West --- with its ever decreasing numbers of spermatozoa in men --- is environmental pollution caused by the byproducts of the pill" released in human waste, the article said. Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the Vatican-based World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, wrote the article that appeared in the paper's Jan. 4 edition. The pill has created "devastating ecological effects from tons of hormones being released into the environment for years," the article said. According to news reports, scientists worldwide have found sexual abnormalities in fish and other water-dwelling creatures that have been exposed to sewage contaminated with synthetic estrogens and other hormones like those used in the pill. Some European studies have blamed increased male infertility and poor reproductive health on environmental causes, especially estrogenlike chemicals found in pesticides, plastic food containers, shampoos, cosmetics and other products.

Vatican action against U.S. Jesuit is not definitive, order says
ROME (CNS) --- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has asked U.S. Jesuit Father Roger Haight not to teach Christology at any university --- Catholic or not, said the Rome-based spokesman of the Jesuits. "He can continue to teach, but not systematic theology connected with Christology," said Father Giuseppe Bellucci, spokesman for the Jesuits. "The prohibition against teaching is not a condemnation and is not definitive; a committee of Jesuits, in fact, is studying the position of Father Roger, who is willing to collaborate to clarify his positions," Father Bellucci told Catholic News Service Jan. 5. In 2005 the doctrinal congregation published a notification that Father Haight could no longer teach as a Catholic theologian because of "serious doctrinal errors" in his 1999 book, "Jesus Symbol of God." While discussions with his Jesuit superiors and between the Jesuits and the doctrinal congregation continued, Father Haight has been teaching at Union Theological Seminary, a nondenominational graduate school in New York.

Bishops pay tribute to Helen Suzman, 91, anti-apartheid leader
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) --- Catholic bishops in southern Africa paid tribute to the courage and faith of anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman, who died Jan. 1 in Johannesburg at the age of 91. "If ever there was a South African who epitomized the belief that you are never too small to make a difference, it was Helen Suzman," the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference said in a statement issued by Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, conference spokesman. Suzman, who served in South Africa's legislature from 1953 to 1989 and was one of the country's most famous white crusaders against racial segregation, "was never afraid to proclaim the principles of justice and fairness, to stand up for them when the occasion demanded, and to live by them in her public and political life," the conference statement said. The daughter of Jewish immigrants was "a woman of outstanding courage, straight as a die in making her point and fearless in exposing the injustices and inhumanity of the apartheid system and its implementation," it said.

Canadian author, journalist Bernard Daly dies of cancer
TORONTO (CNS) --- Bernard Daly --- author, journalist and one of the most influential lay members of the Catholic Church in Canada --- died peacefully Jan. 2 at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto after losing a battle with cancer. He was 83. Daly loved the Catholic Church and devoted most of his life to it. Through the years he maintained a particular interest in the role of the laity as "leaven in the dough" of the world. He spent 35 years working for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and then, after his retirement, returned to become editor and publisher of The Catholic Register, 1993-1996. The funeral Mass was scheduled for Jan. 8 at Blessed John XXIII Parish in Toronto. Burial will take place later in the family plot at St. Camillus Parish cemetery at Farrellton, Quebec. His writing --- in both his books and editorials --- emphasized the renewal of the Catholic Church as found in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. He stressed that the laity needed to increase its knowledge of church teachings and use them to shape their own efforts to bring justice and compassion to public policy.

Activists, thinkers advance ideas to improve FCC
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- The Federal Communications Commission, like virtually every other federal agency, is going to experience some degree of change once a new presidential administration takes office Jan. 20. But the nature and degree of that change was the focus of lively discussion at a forum Jan. 5 at the National Press Club in Washington. Ideas for reforming the FCC included giving it more power or less power, greater congressional oversight or more independence from Congress, having just one commissioner instead of the five who currently serve, and mandating more stringent conflict-of-interest rules after leaving FCC service, and ranged from reorganization to abolition. "The FCC is a broken institution. At least the House Democrats thought so," said Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that looks at the public interest as it relates to communications technology and intellectual property. Public Knowledge co-sponsored the forum with Silicon Flatirons, a law, technology and entrepreneurship center at the University of Colorado.

Migrant farmworkers come and go daily to Arizona fields
YUMA, Ariz. (CNS) --- In the wee hours of the morning, in the chilly darkness, they head for work. Starting as early as 1 or 2 a.m., they walk or catch rides to the border and cross --- often a time-consuming ordeal --- and then climb into buses that carry them to the produce fields, where they labor all day, returning home after dark. The next day, they do it all over again. The work is challenging for the Mexican men and women who make their living in the fields of southwestern Arizona, in and around Yuma. It's so difficult, in fact, that many young people today pass up the opportunity. To see the plight of the farmworkers firsthand, Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas journeyed to the fields in Yuma County and San Luis Rio Colorado, in the Mexican state of Sonora, for the second time in a year. He described the Dec. 4-6 tour as "a unique educational and spiritual experience." Bishop Kicanas said, "Clearly, our church needs to find even more ways to reach out pastorally to those who labor in these fields, to strengthen their family life, to advocate for them."

More than two dozen US bishops could retire for age reasons in 2009
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Following the Jan. 5 retirements of 78-year-old Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit and Bishop John J. McRaith of Owensboro, Ky., up to 27 more U.S. bishops, including three cardinals, could retire because of age this year. There are 16 active U.S. bishops, including three cardinals, who have already turned 75. Eleven more will celebrate their 75th birthday in 2009. At age 75 bishops are requested to submit their resignation to the pope. Cardinal Bernard F. Law, archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome and a cardinal since 1985, turned 75 Nov. 4, 2006. Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York, whose 75th birthday was April 2, 2007, also celebrated 50 years as a priest that year. Cardinal F. James Stafford, a Baltimore native who marked his 75th birthday July 26, 2007, has been the Vatican's major penitentiary since 2003. Following a tradition begun by Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI often has asked cardinals to stay on the job after they reached the age of 75. Even when a cardinal retires in his 70s, he remains an active member of the College of Cardinals, eligible to enter a conclave and vote for a new pope, until age 80.