McManus to be missed
With the death of Bishop William McManus at 83 in early March, the church and the U.S. hierarchy lost a valuable ambassador of common sense, candor and wit. Especially since his retirement as head of the Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., diocese in 1985, McManus had demonstrated at meetings of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops a remarkable ability to cut through pretentious gobbledygook and get to the human heart of the issues. He believed the church's table should be big enough to welcome all, and his sentiments were invariably on the side of openness and inclusion. For his wake he had instructed that there be "no glasses and no miter on my dead head." A longtime supporter of single mothers, he also left instructions for an all-female team of readers and pall bearers for his funeral Mass.

We are not making this up
In the aptly named town of Picayune, Miss., guards have been posted during liturgies at St. Charles Catholic Church to make sure that parishioners actually swallow the consecrated communion wafers. The precaution stems from fears on the part of the pastor that people who leave Mass early may in fact be stealing hosts for use in Satanic rituals.

Godtalk on cable
A popular CTA conference presenter on spirituality, Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan, has begun an alternative religious interview series for cable television. A leader of CTA/Northern Virginia and author of 11 books, Meehan premiered "Godtalk" this month on her local public access cable TV with a series related to her book, The Healing Power of Prayer. She interviews cancer patients, doctors, spiritual directors and poets. The program is also ecumenical: another set of 1997 programs will discuss "Women of God" from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures with women scholars from different churches, synagogues and mosques. Meehan can make broadcast-quality videotapes available for airing on your own local cable station. Contact her at 703 379-2487 (phone and fax).

After years of dismissing public opinion polls as sociological nonsense, the Catholic right authorized a poll of their own recently and found one, lonely cause for joy which was featured on the cover of the March Catholic World Report: "Catholics Reject Inclusive Language." With a variety of pie charts, the magazine showed how a Roper poll of 1,000 Catholics revealed that 66 percent preferred "I will make you fishers of men" over "I will make you fish for people." (Wouldn't you?) Other random selections from the unfamiliar New American Bible drew similar responses from the polling sample, 76 percent of whom admitted they didn't know what inclusive language was all about. Other results of the poll received lesser notice in the issue: 58 percent disagreed with the statement that "women cannot be ordained priests"; 73 percent disagreed with the statement that "artificial methods of birth control" are wrong; and 59 percent disagreed with the statement that "abortion is never justified."