Research conducted by the US Pew Research Center found that support for legal abortion among Americans dropped from 52 to 46 per cent over the past year. It is significant that even among white non-Hispanic Catholics there was a two per cent drop in support for abortion.

Unbaptised babies' mass grave blessed

Bishop Noël Treanor of Down and Conner, Northern Ireland, blessed an unmarked mass grave containing the remains of hundreds of unbaptised children who were formerly not allowed burial in consecrated ground.

"The Church is desirous and happy to undo any errors, to honour the memory of these children, to recognise the grief of the parents, not only in the loss of their children but in their sense of neglect of those children by the community, by the Church," Bishop Treanor said.

Threats to doctors' conscience rights

Douglas Farrow, associate professor of religious studies at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, told a group of Canadian Catholic doctors that conscience rights are under threat in North America. Farrow asked doctors to insist that specialties such as like obstetrics and gynecology continue to adhere to Hippocratic principles and to inform themselves of the differences between Catholic and utilitarian ethics. "Don't just be doctors, then, however well-educated," he said. "Be people who are recognisable as having been with Jesus."

Bishops' worries over Obama unconfirmed

Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said President Barack Obama's first 100 days in office had not confirmed the Catholic Church's worst fears about radical policy changes in ethical areas.

A front-page article on April 29 said that "on ethical questions, too - which from the time of the electoral campaign have been the subject of strong worries by the Catholic bishops - Obama does not seem to have confirmed the radical innovations that he had discussed."

The new draft guidelines for stem-cell research, for example, did not constitute the major change in policy that was foreseen a few months ago. "(The guidelines) do not allow the creation of new embryos for research or therapeutic purposes, for cloning or for reproductive ends, and federal funds may be used only for experimentation with excess embryos," it said.

In recession, people return to Mass

Many Irish parishes have reported an increase in Mass attendance in recent months, with some parishes reporting 30 per cent increases.

Bishop Joseph Duffy of Clogher, Northern Ireland, said it is not just older people who are attending Mass in greater numbers. After a period of unprecedented economic growth, Ireland's economy has been in dire straits in recent months. In a workforce of two million, approximately 1,000 people lose their jobs every day.

"People are experiencing deep crisis for the first time in their lives," Bishop Duffy said. "The pace of this economic collapse has been so swift, I think it is causing people to stop and search; this naturally finds a home in coming back to church."

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)