The sacrament of the anointing of the sick is just one way priests and chaplains can minister to the dying and their families. They -- along with others in pastoral care ministry -- can also pray, sing, read Scriptures, counsel, help with arrangements and mediate conflicts. They even grant final requests. One patient at Our Lady of Mercy Life Center nursing home in Guilderland, for example, expressed a lifelong desire to see a certain play. Marie Venaglia, the Catholic chaplain, rented a DVD from the library and played it for her. After residents die, the center holds a service for family, staff and visitors. It also has periodic memorial services. "It's another form of closure, another way to talk about how (the bereaved are) doing," Venaglia told The Evangelist, newspaper of the Albany Diocese. "Death is a natural process. We can speak freely about it. It's not all medical. The pastoral ministry here is all incorporated into the whole care." She and other Catholics who encounter death on a regular basis recently reflected on pastoral care of the dying, God's presence at a deathbed and their common experiences in patients' final hours. The anointing of the sick -- which Venaglia described as "a blessing showing that the whole church is united in praying for this person at this time in their life, not just a death" -- is offered every six weeks and as needed.

After the historic announcement by Pope Francis that he will visit Philadelphia next September, the reality of the challenges and joys of the event is sinking in for planners, civic officials and ordinary Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It will be a "once-in-a-lifetime chance for Philadelphia to shine," Daniel Hilferty called the 2015 World Meeting of Families, which will be capped by the papal visit to the city. Chairman of the meeting's Executive Leadership Committee, he said the event will require unprecedented coordination and support. During a news conference at the Philadelphia Art Museum Nov. 17, the day the pope confirmed his visit at the Vatican, Hilferty called on the region's business community to contribute financial and corporate support to the event. He said the fundraising effort was "more than halfway toward the goal," which he did not state. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput has said he plans to announce the status of fundraising efforts early in 2015. That is just one of the issues facing organizers before next fall. One thorny issue had been the inability for people registering for the families' meeting also to secure hotel rooms for the three days of the papal visit -- because it was unconfirmed, the rooms were not made available. Now they can be booked.

The recent announcements by Facebook and Apple that they would include among employee health benefits the option for young women to freeze their eggs for future use at a cost of up to $20,000 has been greeted with numerous objections by bioethicists and pro-life leaders. Unlike normal medical procedures intended to restore health to a person with an illness, this proposal offers "risky technology" to otherwise healthy young women, noted Jennifer Lahl, president of the California-based Center for Bioethics and Culture. "This is still an enterprise that has a very high failure rate," she said, and no one yet knows the long-term health effects of the medications and other chemical agents that are used in the processes of retrieving and freezing eggs. It's amazing to her, Lahl said, how little attention "these very smart people" at the tech companies are paying to "human biology 101," which knows that advancing maternal age always carries risks, and she said she wonders what benefits will be offered to women and children who suffer adverse effects. "It's very hard on women's bodies to retrieve eggs to freeze," and very unnatural, Jeanne F. Monahan, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told Catholic News Service. The Catholic Church views in vitro fertilization as immoral and contrary to natural law.

For couples struggling to conceive a child, in vitro fertilization has been a medical standard for the past 30 years. The Catholic Church has long opposed the process as immoral, because it separates conception from the marital act and it destroys embryos. With the procedure's prevalence in the medical world, some Catholic couples are led to believe they are out of medical options after a doctor recommends it. However, officials from the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha, Nebraska, say that in vitro fertilization, or IVF, is not a miracle procedure and they report that more effective options exist. Dr. Kristina Pakiz, associate medical consultant, said couples "do not have to feel trapped in a corner where they are told they will never have a child without in vitro fertilization. The truth is that there is superior gynecologic health care available to them." She said IVF has a success rate of about 30 percent and increases the risk of high-risk pregnancy and birth defects. About five in six embryos created in the process will die. IVF does not address root causes of infertility; only a detailed workup that helps doctors diagnose and treat infertility as the product of an underlying condition can do that. When infertility is seen as an underlying medical condition and treated accordingly, success rates for conceiving increase.

Pope Francis has worked to keep in the public discourse the issue of poverty understood in its widest possible sense, said the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "Going well beyond a merely economic conception of poverty, Pope Francis has tried to indicate to the world the true poverty of the human condition in our times: the poverty of body and soul, pointing out all the forces at work in the world further impoverishing mankind," said Cardinal Gerhard Muller. He made the comments at a conference on poverty. In a keynote discussion, Cardinal Muller was asked to speak about his 2014 book, "Poor for the Poor: The Mission of the Church," released by the Vatican Publishing House. Pope Francis wrote the preface to the book. "The mission of the church is to free mankind from the poverty of our fallen condition and constantly remind us that we are created in the image and likeness of God; we are the object of his divine love; we are called to the richness of eternal life with him," the cardinal said.

The “rock” of our faith is not found in “wise and persuasive words,” Pope Francis said, but rather in the “living word” which is Christ's death and resurrection. Human history culminating in Christ's coming was the main focus of the Pope's homily for Mass, celebrated in Saint Peter's Basilica on behalf of all cardinals and bishops who have died over the last twelve months. Jesus' death and resurrection, said Pope Francis, “represents the culmination of the entire journey: it is the event of the resurrection which responds to the people of God's long search, to the search of every man and all of humanity.” “Each of us is invited to enter into this event,” he continued. Like Mary, the women, and the centurion, we are first called to be before the Cross. There, we are to “listen to Jesus' cry, and his last breath, and finally the silence,” which continues until Holy Saturday. After that, the Holy Father continued, “we are called to go to the tomb,” and hear the words: “He is risen. He is not here”. The answer, the “foundation, the rock” lies here, Pope Francis said, “in the living word of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus,” not in “wise persuasive arguments.” The Holy Father recalled the words of Saint Paul, saying if Jesus is “not risen, then our faith is empty and inconsistent. However, since he is Risen, in fact, and He is the Resurrection, therefore our faith is full of truth and eternal life.” “Thanks to the Word of God,” the Pope said, reflecting on the readings for the Mass of suffrage, “this celebration is illuminated by faith in the Resurrection.” “All of Divine Revelation is the fruit of dialogue between God and His people,” the Holy Father said, and “faith in the Resurrection is tied to this dialogue,” accompanying God's people throughout history. It is no wonder, he added, that a mystery as decisive and “superhuman” as the Resurrection necessitated the lengthy journey ending with Jesus Christ. Jesus can say he is the “resurrection and the life,” Pope Francis continued, because in Him the mystery is not only fully revealed, it is actualized, and for the first time becomes a “definitive reality.” Concluding his homily, Pope Francis recalled the cardinals and bishops who have died over the past year. “Our prayer is enriched by sentiments, memories, gratitude for the witness of persons we knew, with whom we shared the service of the Church,” he said. Pope Francis closed his homily by entrusting the departed to the “gaze of the Heavenly Father” and the intercession of Mary. “Together with the faithful who have served here on earth, may they delight in the Joy of the New Jerusalem.”

The heir to the British throne suggested that Islamic leaders must speak out against the persecution of Christians by Muslims if they are to guarantee freedom within their own countries. Prince Charles said in a video message released Nov. 4 that it was an "indescribable tragedy that Christianity is now under such threat in the Middle East," especially as the followers of the two faiths had lived together "peaceably" for centuries. The message coincided with the presentation in the British Parliament of the 2014 Religious Freedom Report by the United Kingdom branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians around the world. The prince said faith leaders had a duty to ensure that their co-religionists treated those of other faiths with tolerance. "Rather than remaining silent, faith leaders have, it seems to me, a responsibility to ensure that people within their own tradition respect people from other faith traditions," Prince Charles said, adding that it was "essential that governments honor their duty to uphold the right of people to practice their faith." The Prince of Wales also was critical of the decline of religious freedom in Britain. "It seems to me that our future as a free society -- both here in Britain and throughout the world -- depends on recognizing the crucial role played by people of faith," he said.