The new bishop of the Diocese of New Ulm, the Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt, called for special emphasis on vocations during his homily which was delivered at the installation ceremonies at St. Mary, Sleepy Eye, MN. He asked specifically for prayer and fasting during the next year for priestly, religious, diaconal, and missionary vocations. In a letter to pastoral leaders he also outlined his plan for conducting a contest for the writing of a new vocations prayer. Encouraging Catholic School and Religious Education students to participate in the contest, he is offering $100 to the best three prayers for vocations that are submitted. The deadline for submission of entries to Bishop Nienstedt is September 14, 2001.

In a vote to ban all cloning of human embryos in the United States, the U.S. House of Representatives July 31 passed the Human Cloning Prohibition Act introduced by Reps. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich. First, however, the House defeated a rival bill that would have allowed cloning of human embryos to obtain stem cells for research and clinical use. The substitute bill would have banned for 10 years the implanting of cloned embryos in a womb to produce human babies...

...Monsignor William Fay, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had sent a letter to Congress July 31 commenting that the rival bill explicitly authorized and even licensed "laboratories to pursue research designed to refine the cloning process and in 10 years automatically (dropped) all legal barriers to the use of cloned embryos to initiate a pregnancy." Fay said "the framers of the Weldon-Stupak bill understand that once a society allows experimental human cloning in the laboratory, attempts to initiate pregnancies and to create live-born children by cloning are inevitable." Thus, the general secretary said, "far from offering a substitute path toward a ban on cloning," the rival bill constituted "an object leassen showing that this judgement by Congressmen Weldon and Stupak was exactly right."...

...The Weldon-Stupak bill approved by the House specifically bans only the cloning of human embryos. It does not encompass human embryos produced for research purposes in laboratories or clinics by in vitro fertilization. After House approval the bill moved to the Senate. Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, urged the Senate to pass the measure "as soon as possible." Keeler said such a law "will send a clear signal that we are not merely the victims of technical advance, that we can limit and direct our technological powers to serve and not demean human dignity." Keeler added, "It will be especially important to express and strengthen this resolve as our lawmakers face issues such as embryonic stem-cell research, genetic discrimination and proposals for creating human beings solely for research purposes."

How many people hold Vatican citizenship? On December 31, 2000, the number was 524, according to the recently released Vatican yearbook for 2000. These citizens included 49 cardinals, 271 Vatican diplomatic-corps members, 63 other prelates, 88 members of the Swiss Guard, and 53 "other lay people." The yearbook reported numerous other interesting facts. For example, the Vatican installed 361 new phone lines in 2000, 212 of which were ISDN lines for high-speed computer connections. No fires were reported in the Vatican during 2000, though its fire department walked a twice-daily 12-mile inspection circuit of Vatican buildings, offices, churches, and chapels. And the Vatican health service’s staff and volunteer medical personnel treated 15,109 jubilee-year pilgrims from 114 nations during 2000.