Nation and World News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI created 22 new cardinals from 13 countries — including three from the United States and Canada — placing red hats on their heads and calling them to lives of even greater love and service to the Church.

The Churchmen who joined the College of Cardinals Feb. 18 included Cardinals Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Edwin F. O'Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem and former archbishop of Baltimore; and Thomas C. Collins of Toronto.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Practically everyone knows two things about cardinals -- that they wear red hats and elect the pope. But what other purpose do these men serve in the Catholic Church?

On the eve of the Feb. 18 consistory where Pope Benedict XVI was scheduled to expand the College of Cardinals by 22 new members, the three North Americans among them shared some thoughts on the meaning of their new role.

The Obama administration has responded to Belmont Abbey College's lawsuit challenging the HHS health care mandate. In a Feb. 17 release from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the firm representing Belmont Abbey, said that the Obama administration didn't make any attempt to defend the constitutionality of the mandate, which will require all health insurance plans to provide free contraception, abortion-producing drugs and sterilizations.

Washington D.C.- An amendment providing a religious exemption to the Obama administration's contraception mandate was prevented from coming to a vote in the U.S. Senate on Feb. 15.

"This is supposed to be a body where we have open discussion, where any member can offer any amendment to any bill at any time," said Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.).

He criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for shutting off the opportunity to introduce new amendments to a bill that was under discussion in the Senate.

"I think the American people want more than that," he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Secularism has had an easy time spreading through many traditionally Christian cultures because so many Christians do not know their faith and do not grasp the truth it teaches, Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan of New York told the College of Cardinals.

VATICAN CITY -- In part to avoid giving the impression that becoming a cardinal is a sacrament or quasi-sacrament, Pope Benedict XVI will use a revised, streamlined prayer service to create 22 new cardinals Feb. 18.

"The rite used up to now has been revised and simplified with the approval of the Holy Father Benedict XVI," the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, reported last month.