The first draft of a new U.S. National Directory for Catechesis was sent to the nation’s bishops in January. It adapts and applies to the U.S. situation the church’s General Directory for Catechesis. It also draws extensively from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Once completed, the directory will serve as a guide for all with catechetical responsibilities in U.S. dioceses and parishes. It will replace the National Catechetical Directory approved by the bishops in 1977 and published in 1979 under the title "Sharing the Light of Faith." A bishops’ conference spokesman said that more than 150 dioceses have named consultation coordinators to organize local meetings of catechetical officials and others to discuss and critique the draft.

Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston has announced additions to a 1993 archdiocesan policy on sexual abuse of minors by clergy, including a provision mandating "all clergy, employees and volunteers to report any allegations of abuse against a minor." In a statement January 9, Law said that "any priest known to have sexually abused a minor simply will not function as a priest in any way in this archdiocese." The cardinal apologized to all "who have been sexually abused as minors by priests"; the apology was made "with heartfelt sorrow to those abused by John Geoghan," a former Boston priest facing criminal charges that he molested scores of children while a priest. Geoghan, ordained in 1962, was removed from parish ministry in 1994 and forcibly laicized in 1998. Law said that "however much I regret having assigned him, it is important to recall that John Geoghan was never assigned by me to a parish without psychiatric or medical assessments indicating that such assignments were appropriate."

Italy’s bishops have approved a low-gluten Eucharistic host for sufferers of celiac disease. The bishops’ national liturgy office, backed by the scientific committee of the Italian Celiac Association, said the amount of gluten in the approved hosts met church requirements but would not provoke health problems in celiac patients. The liturgy office said the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith approved the hosts. Because U.S. medical science generally advocates that celiac sufferers adopt a totally gluten-free diet, the U.S. bishops recommend celiac sufferers receive communion under the form of wine.

"We could do with a moratorium [on canonizations] until we can come up with a new approach," Father Richard McBrien, University of Notre Dame theology professor, told reporters in Rome where he spoke on the canonization process January 11. The current process, he said, favors members of religious orders and movements because they have the resources to make their candidate known. McBrien criticized plans to canonize Opus Dei founder Blessed Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer; Blessed Padre Pio, a Capuchin confessor whose body was marked with signs of the crucifixion; and Blessed Juan Diego, the Mexican Indian who saw Our Lady of Guadalupe. "These are not bad people, they are just bad models for the universal church," he said. McBrien said Mother Teresa of Calcutta "has universal appeal and is a real model of holiness, and not because she had the stigmata or saw the Virgin Mary; she took care of the dying and the poorest of the poor."