Details:  After nearly 30 years of serving with the clergy at Simi Valley’s St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, Deacon Jim Carper is now answering a new call. The Simi Valley resident was recently appointed parish life director of St. Bernadette Catholic Church in South Central Los Angeles. He has been serving in the congregation since June. “I am excited about the opportunity to serve a parish that needs me,” he said. …The grandson of the Rev. James Fawcett, who was... Read more

Details from The Georgia Bulletin:  Pope Francis has appointed Bishop David P. Talley, auxiliary bishop of the Atlanta Archdiocese, to serve the people of the Diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana, as coadjutor bishop to Bishop Ronald P. Herzog, the bishop of that diocese. In a statement, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory said that the pope has given the people of the Diocese of Alexandria a “tremendous pastoral gift.” Archbishop Gregory said, “Bishop Talley is a servant minister of our Church, who is... Read more

Details:  Archbishop Peter Leo Gerety, considered one of the most progressive Roman Catholic bishops in America during his 12-year tenure as head of the Archdiocese of Newark, died Tuesday, the archdiocese confirmed. He was 104. Gerety, the world’s oldest Catholic bishop, marked his 77th year as a priest and 50th year as a bishop in June. He spent his final years at St. Joseph’s Home for the Elderly, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, in Totowa. “He made an... Read more

From the press release:  The Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh (1917–2015) was an important mid-20th century educational, religious and civic leader. The stamp features an oil-on-panel painting of Father Hesburgh standing on the University of Notre Dame campus, where he served as president for 35 years. Appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1957, Father Hesburgh helped compile reports on racial discrimination and the denial of voting rights that resulted in the Omnibus Civil Rights Act of 1964. A... Read more

This Tuesday, barely a week past the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, my wife and I did something we’d long wanted to do: we paid a visit downtown to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center. To say it was an emotional experience would be an understatement. I still remember my first visit to the site, barely six months after the attacks; I was down there as part of the CBS production staff to record... Read more

Inspiration: An elite triathlon race in Mexico ended dramatically Sunday with one brother helping another across the finish line. At the final race of the World Triathlon Series in Cozumel, Mexico, Jonny Brownlee of Britain was leading with less than half a mile to go when he slowed and staggered over to a water station. His brother, Alistair, in a battle for second with Henri Schoeman of South Africa, veered over, pulled Jonny’s arm over his shoulder and began hauling... Read more

From The New York Times:  Leonard Cohen’s ballad “Hallelujah” has become so inescapable that the songwriter once asked for a break from his own track. “I think it’s a good song, but too many people sing it,” he told the Guardian in 2009, agreeing with a critic who asked for “a moratorium on ‘Hallelujah’ in movies and television shows.” It appears that the producers of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards were unaware of the unofficial ban. When the In Memoriam segment... Read more

Awesome: A group of women in Tennessee found a way to help people in need, and the environment, at the same time. They call themselves, “the bag ladies.” They are taking old plastic bags and turning them into mats for the homeless to sleep on. Some were sent to Louisiana to help people who lost their homes to flooding. “It’s addictive. It gets to the point that you do two or three and you say, ‘Hey, I’m actually making a... Read more

By this point, even Henry VIII must be turning over in his grave. From the BBC: Boxing matches held at Coventry Cathedral raised about £10,000 for charity at a place of worship that was, its dean said, committed to a world without war. Rev John Whitcombe said he climbed into the ring to speak about “peace and reconciliation” before Saturday’s so-called white collar fights – 13 bouts of three, two-minute rounds for which amateur participants underwent eight weeks of training. He said a boxing match was “not what you expect”... Read more

Details:  Two Mexican priests were found murdered Monday, just hours after they were kidnapped from the low-income neighborhood where they served in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. Prosecutors said the two men were abducted from their church in the state’s northern city of Poza Rica on Sunday. The priests were found with bullet wounds in the municipality of Papantla, close to where they were kidnapped. A third man, a church assistant, managed to escape the kidnappers. He was found... Read more