Word: churches
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...Iowans are grateful for the checks, loans, donations and clean-up help from the government, non-profits, church groups, volunteers, neighbors and out-of-towners. They generally praise federal government agencies as well as the Red Cross and state and local governments for a prompt initial response. But some also report frustrating delays, run-arounds, indecision and lack of information. And emotions range from relief to grief, calmness to anxiety, optimism to gloom. People who had the least to begin with are sounding the most marooned. Difficult decisions, for individuals and communities, loom about how to rebuild, including whether...
Pope Benedict XVI is 81. The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, is 67. The median age of Australia's regular Catholic churchgoers is 58. The quarter-million pilgrims who've flocked to Sydney to celebrate World Youth Day are, well... young. But the 2,000-year-old Church that still prints official documents in Latin and the 20-year-olds snapping photos of the Pope on disposable cameras seem to be having a blast together. "The task of young people is to bring fire into the Church," Pell said on Wednesday, after joining 4,400 priests...
Australia is an apt venue for World Youth Day, the Pope said, because its Church is "the youngest on any continent." The oldest pontiff to be elected since the 18th century is reputed to own an iPod and sends a daily SMS message to pilgrims, signing off "BXVI." Young people in turn have been invited to send text messages for display on giant "prayer wall" screens around the city. Event coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher says planners want to make WYD memorable "by using new ways to connect with today's tech-savvy youth...
...Australia for the occasion. In a small convent chapel on the other side of Sydney Harbour, they did the same at the tomb of 19th-century Australian nun Mary McKillop. Both are patrons of World Youth Day and, their supporters hope, will soon be declared saints by the Church. Out in the bright blue, southern hemisphere winter day, pilgrims strolled or sat in the sunshine, strumming guitars, snapping photos, checking daily Papal text messages, and buying "I [heart] Jesus" T shirts...
...Fewer than one in five of the country's 5 million Catholics attends mass regularly; among twentysomethings the rate is about 7%. After plummeting in the 1970s and '80s, the number of priestly vocations is growing steadily, but the average age of priests is still nearly 60. And the Church is under attack for refusing to ordain women or condone homosexual behavior as well as for its handling of cases of sexual abuse by priests and brothers. Protesters have prepared their own World Youth Day activities, foisting condoms on pilgrims and selling "Pope Go Homo" T-shirts. Some Sydney residents...