Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana was named the new president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in late October, just as his debut on the global Catholic stage as the relator, or general secretary, of the Synod for Africa ended. It was in some ways a baptism by fire for the 61-year-old Ghanian prelate, introducing him among other things to the press climate in Rome. A few fairly innocent comments from Turkson about condoms, and about the prospect of a black pope, briefly became a cause celebre in the Italian papers and prompted the Vatican to issue a swift "clarification."

A new study on the faith of Catholic college students produced a Rorschach moment in today's church that was neatly typified by contrasting headlines in the Catholic media: "Catholic colleges weakening students' faith, new study finds," declared the conservative-leaning Catholic World News. "Study: Catholics at Catholic colleges less likely to stray from church," went the headline from Catholic News Service, the media outlet of the American bishops.

The Catholic Church has a positive vision of human life, marriage and family which must not be presented as a list of things the church opposes, Pope Benedict XVI told the bishops of Scotland. The Church's "positive and inspiring vision of human life, the beauty of marriage and the joy of parenthood" are "rooted in God's infinite, transforming and ennobling love for all of us, which opens our eyes to recognize and love his image in our neighbor," the pope said.

A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared "ecumenical catechism" as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches. "We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils," Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches.

In a message embracing the evangelizing potential of digital media, Pope Benedict XVI asked priests around the world to use Web sites, videos and blogs as tools of pastoral ministry. "The world of digital communication, with its almost limitless expressive capacity, makes us appreciate all the more St. Paul's exclamation: 'Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel,'" the pope said in his message for the 2010 celebration of World Communications Day.

By this stage, outsiders trying to make sense of Pope Benedict XVI's approach to Jewish-Catholic relations might be forgiven for wondering if the pontiff suffers from an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia. After all, this is the pope who made a point of visiting a Cologne synagogue in 2005 on his first foreign trip, and Auschwitz on his second, only later to revive a controversial Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews.

After years of legal wrangling and after unsuccessfully taking its argument all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, on Dec. 1 the Bridgeport, Conn., diocese unsealed nearly 12,600 pages of documents dealing with three decades of child molestation accusations against diocesan priests. The files, including a deposition of then Bishop Edward Egan, the recently retired cardinal of New York, were part of lawsuits filed against six priests in the Bridgeport diocese, five of whom were eventually banned from ministry and one who died. The lawsuits were settled in 2001. The diocese, which covers some of the wealthiest towns in the country as well as Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city, has paid nearly $38 million over the years to settle abuse claims involving allegations by more than 60 people who said they had been molested by priests.

Responding to scientific advances and widespread "confusion" among their flocks, U.S. Catholic bishops on Tuesday, Nov. 17, issued detailed guidelines on marriage, reproductive technologies and health care for severely brain-damaged patients. The bishops gathered here for their semi-annual meeting also heard a preliminary report on the "causes and contexts" of the clergy sexual abuse scandal that resulted in some 14,000 abuse claims and cost the church $2.6 billion since 1950. In other action the bishops approved the English translation and U.S. adaptations of five final sections of the Roman Missal; passed a $144.5 million budget for 2010 for their bishops' conference; and heard a preliminary report on a study on causes and context of sexual abuse.

Just two of 61 U.S. archdioceses and dioceses contacted by NCR said they would dip into local church coffers to support the Vatican's controversial visitation of U.S. women religious congregations. NCR called and e-mailed every archdiocese in the country, as well as a sampling of 29 dioceses across time zones. Twenty-two archdioceses responded to the inquiry, while only seven dioceses did. Many refused to comment, while others cited the difficult economy as a reason they would not contribute to the three-year visitation process, which the Vatican estimates will cost $1.1 million.

In this age of global warming and unpredictable tsunamis and all manner of uncertainties financial and spiritual, it makes sense that we should all worry a little about the fate of our souls. As our spiritual guides are fond of reminding us, there is death at the end of this long and winding road and we should all remember to repent and be saved from a fate far worse than any tsunami. And so it was as if Africa's Catholic bishops had read my mind when they declared the other day: "Many Catholics in high office have fallen woefully short in their performance. The synod calls on such people to repent, or quit the public arena and stop causing havoc to the people and giving the Catholic Church a bad name."