WASHINGTON (CNS) --- President Barack Obama met for half an hour March 17 with Chicago Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the White House and the USCCB announced.

Brief statements issued by the White House and the USCCB said little more than that the two presidents had met for a private, 30-minute afternoon session in the Oval Office. The meeting was not included in Obama's daily schedule released to the press and no mention was made of it by either organization until it was over.

"The president and Cardinal George discussed a wide range of issues, including important opportunities for the government and the Catholic Church to continue their long-standing partnership to tackle some of the nation's most pressing challenges," said the White House statement. "The president thanked Cardinal George for his leadership and for the contributions of the Catholic Church in America and around the world."

The statement from the USCCB said: "The meeting was private. Cardinal George and President Obama discussed the Catholic Church in the United States and its relation to the new administration. The meeting lasted approximately 30 minutes. At the conclusion, Cardinal George expressed his gratitude for the meeting and his hopes that it will foster fruitful dialogue for the sake of the common good."

Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, USCCB director of media relations, said she expected no further information about the meeting to be released.

Cleveland Diocese to have 52 fewer parishes within 15 months
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Come June 30, 2010, there will be 52 fewer parishes in the Cleveland Diocese. Under a plan announced March 15 following a two-year planning process, Bishop Richard Lennon said 29 parishes will close and 41 others will merge to form 18 new parishes during the next 15 months. The realignment will leave the country's 17th largest diocese with 172 parishes serving 753,000 Catholics across eight counties in northeastern Ohio. All of the closings and mergers affect parishes in the diocese's urban cores --- Cleveland, Akron and Lorain --- and in several inner-ring suburbs. Some mergers involve parishes within blocks of each other. Meeting with reporters, Bishop Lennon called the realignment "a very difficult but necessary step" to carry out the church's mission in northeast Ohio. He cited the movement of Catholics from urban to outlying suburban and rural areas of the diocese, the declining number of priests in the diocese and faltering parish finances as reasons for the realignment. He said population shifts have resulted in two-thirds of Catholics in the diocese being served by one-third of the parishes.

Catholic leaders in several states speak out against death penalty
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Hours after the Washington state bishops urged Gov. Christine Gregoire to reduce Cal Coburn Brown's death sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the state Supreme Court stayed the condemned killer's execution by lethal injection. The court's 5-4 ruling March 12 rejected a lower court decision the day before and allowed Brown to join in a lawsuit challenging Washington's lethal injection protocols. The decision is expected to delay the execution at least until August. "While our sympathies clearly and rightfully rest with the victim and her loved ones, we must not let the desire of some for retribution bind us to further violence," the Washington state bishops wrote. Currently, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and Maryland are among the states considering legislation to ban the use of capital punishment; Alaskan legislators recently introduced a bill to reinstate the death penalty. In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson received an estimated 4,500 phone calls and e-mails over the March 14-15 weekend as he was deciding whether to sign a bill replacing the death penalty with a life sentence without parole. Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said in a March 16 letter to Richardson that the full body of bishops urged him to sign the legislation.

Scholars: Church won't be forced to marry gay couples if laws change
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- Even if all of the states in the U.S. legalize same-sex marriage, legal experts and religious leaders at a March 13 forum agreed religions will not be forced to perform gay wedding ceremonies. One of the biggest misconceptions in the same-sex marriage debate is that religious clergy may be legally required to perform wedding rites for gay couples in a church sanctuary, said a group of legal scholars, religious leaders, and advocates and opponents of gay marriage at a discussion on the topic at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protecting the free exercise of religion makes it unlikely that a church would be coerced by law into performing same-sex wedding rites in its sanctuary, said David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values.

Advocate, opponent of gay marriage support civil union compromise
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- National Journal columnist Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, strongly disagree on the issue of gay marriage. However, these two men who usually find themselves on opposite ends of the debate have found common ground on a proposal that would provide same-sex couples with many rights only afforded people who are married, while guaranteeing religious freedom to those who reject gay marriage. "If you are against gay marriage, you can concede there are good reasons to be for (same-sex civil unions)," said Blankenhorn during a March 13 forum highlighting the proposal at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "The conflict (over gay marriage) will continue until it's settled one way or the other," he said. "This will just lower the temperature a little, and perhaps bring us a little closer." Blankenhorn and Rauch co-wrote a Feb. 22 New York Times opinion piece proposing a federal compromise on civil unions, which they said would give each side a short-term solution while debate on gay marriage continues.

Vatican official: Brazilian girl, doctors needed mercy after abortion
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- A 9-year-old Brazilian girl and the doctors who performed the girl's abortion needed the Catholic Church's care and concern, not its condemnation, said a leading Vatican official. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, criticized what he called a "hasty" public declaration of the excommunication of the girl's mother and the doctors who aborted the girl's twins. The girl "in the first place should have been defended, hugged and held tenderly to help her feel that we were all on her side" he wrote in the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, March 15. "Before thinking about excommunication, it was necessary and urgent to protect her innocent life and bring her back to a level of humanity of which we men of the church should be expert witnesses and teachers," he said. "Unfortunately, this is not what happened and it has impacted the credibility of our teaching, which appears in the eyes of many as insensitive, incomprehensible and devoid of mercy," he said. Doctors at a hospital in Recife, Brazil, performed an abortion March 4 on the girl, who weighed a little more than 66 pounds and reportedly had been raped repeatedly by her stepfather from the time she was 6 years old. Abortion in Brazil is illegal except in cases of rape or if the mother's life is in danger.

Better awareness of all vocations will lead to more priests, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- The key to increasing the number of candidates for the priesthood is helping all Catholics --- including married couples and youths --- understand that God is calling them to serve him and the church in a special way, Pope Benedict XVI said. Meeting 30 bishops from Argentina March 14, the pope called for "a more incisive pastoral program for marriage and family life" that emphasizes that each Christian has a specific vocation and for "a bolder youth ministry that helps the young to respond with generosity to God's call." The bishops were making their "ad limina" visits to report on the status of their dioceses. "The fundamental role that priests play should lead you to undertake a great effort to promote priestly vocations," the pope told them. Pope Benedict said the fatherly attitude of love and encouragement that must characterize a bishop's relationship to his priests is even more important in situations where a priest is in difficulty.

Pope declares year of the priest to inspire spiritual perfection
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --- Pope Benedict XVI declared a year of the priest in an effort to encourage "spiritual perfection" in priests. The pope will open the special year with a vespers service at the Vatican June 19 --- the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day for the sanctification of priests. He will close the celebrations during a World Meeting of Priests in St. Peter's Square June 19, 2010. The pope made the announcement during an audience March 16 with members of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy. He met with some 70 participants of the congregation's March 16-18 plenary assembly, which focused on the missionary identity of the priest and his mission to sanctify, teach and govern. During this jubilee year, the pope will also proclaim St. John Vianney to be patron saint of all the world's priests. At present he is considered the patron saint of parish priests. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the death of this 19th-century saint who represents a "true example of a priest at the service of the flock of Christ," the pope said. St. John Vianney is widely known to Catholics as the Cure (parish priest) of Ars who won over the hearts of his villagers in France by visiting with them, teaching them about God and reconciling people to the Lord in the confessional.

Irish leaders urge new efforts against violence on St. Patrick's Day
DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS) --- In messages for St. Patrick's Day, Catholic leaders in Ireland called on their fellow citizens to work for an end to the violence that has plagued both Northern Ireland and the neighborhoods of Dublin. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said he could not "speak about the new outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland without also expressing my concern yet again about further episodes of gangland violence in and around Dublin. We are witnessing the incongruous situation in which one revenge-killing begets further revenge, and precisely those who think that violence is an answer end up being the most vulnerable to the next round," he added. Three members of Northern Ireland's security forces were killed in less than 48 hours March 7-9 by dissidents who oppose British rule in the province. So far this year there have been eight gang-related murders in and around Dublin. The president of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, said, "If the awful and tragic events of last week teach us anything, it is that all of us must work unceasingly for peace here on our island."

Sinn Fein leader: Keep perspective on tragic Northern Ireland murders
WASHINGTON (CNS) --- The president of the Irish political party Sinn Fein said the recent attacks in Northern Ireland are a human tragedy but the facts of the events should not be exaggerated. Calling the murders of two young British soldiers and a policeman in Northern Ireland a "full-frontal assault on the peace process," Gerry Adams told journalists in Washington March 16 the "vast majority" of Irish condemned the killings and "were afraid of the situation slipping back" into violence. "Do not minimize what occurred but do not exaggerate what occurred," he said. The violence came from "very small groups of people. That's the fact. That is the truth of it." Sinn Fein, a predominantly Catholic party that supports a unified Ireland without British rule, is "just as much a target" by dissident groups as anyone else, he said. A group calling itself the Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for the policeman's killing March 9, while a group known as the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing of two soldiers March 7. Both groups have broken away from Northern Ireland's largest paramilitary organization, the Irish Republican Army, which has embraced Northern Ireland's peace process since the late 1990s. Sinn Fein is the political arm of the IRA.

Former journalist who appealed to churches wins Salvadoran election
SANTA ANA, El Salvador (CNS) --- Mauricio Funes, who campaigned that the moral strength of churches was at the center of change for this tiny Central American country, was elected president of El Salvador. In his acceptance speech late March 15, Funes echoed the words of slain Archbishop Oscar A. Romero and touched on the ideas of liberation theology. "The prophetic message of our martyr-bishop Archbishop Romero ... said that the church would have a preferential option for the poor. This will be the way I proceed, always looking to favor the poor and the excluded in a preferential way," he said. Funes, a former television journalist who represented the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, defeated Rodrigo Avila by winning 51.3 percent of the vote. During the country's 1980-92 civil war, the FMLN was a guerrilla group that fought the U.S.-backed government forces. It formed in 1980 after left-wing activists and church workers, including Archbishop Romero, were murdered.