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News Release on the Women for Faith and Family, Third Annual Day of Recollection : The Family – Cradle of Faith, On Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Familiaris Consortio, The Christian Family in the Modern World with Bishop Robert Hermann was July 10, 2010.

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USCCB Meeting November 2009 (USCCB Site) -- Marriage Love and Life in the Divine Plan -- Click for pdf copy | Cardinal George Statement on Healthcare - click for pdf copy

US Bishops Roman Missal Formation site - http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/

USCCB on Healthcare Reform,
Link to special section on the official website of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. This important section from the US bishops links to letters from bishops, documents, and other action items: - http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/

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USCCB Doctrine Committee: The Distinction between Direct Abortion and Legitimate Medical Procedures, June 23, 2010

Link: http://www.nccbuscc.org/doctrine/direct-abortion-statement2010-06-23.pdf

Key quotes below:

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with surgery to remove a malfunctioning organ. It is morally justified when the continued presence of the organ causes problems for the rest of the body. Surgery to terminate the life of an innocent person, however, is intrinsically wrong. There are no situations in which it can be justified. Pope Pius XII summed up Catholic teaching when he stated: "As long as a man is not guilty, his life is untouchable, and therefore any act directly tending to destroy it is illicit, whether such destruction is intended as an end in itself or only as a means to an end, whether it is a question of life in the embryonic stage or in a stage of full development or already in its final stages."1

Pope John Paul II acknowledged that women considering abortion often face very
difficult situations.

It is true that the decision to have an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother, insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Sometimes it is feared that the child to be born would live in such conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take place. Nevertheless, these reasons and others like them, however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.2

Nothing, therefore, can justify a direct abortion. "No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church."3

Notes:
1 Discourse to the Saint Luke Union of Italian Doctors, 12 November 1944; as cited in Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (18 November 1974), no. 7 n. 15.

2 Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 58; see also Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion, no. 14.

3 Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 62.

Posted April 16, 2010

The Vatican web site has a new section - responses to sex abuse crises, with links to pertinent docs from Holy See.

ABUSE OF MINORS.THE CHURCH'S RESPONSE