Vocations to religious brotherhood collapse in US 
March 30, 2011
While much attention has been focused on the decline of vocations to the priesthood and women's religious life in the United States, less attention has been paid to the dwindling numbers of religious brothers. "Brothers are becoming an endangered species," says Michael Wick of the Institute on Religious Life. "They're not priests-lite or male nuns. They were often the real witness of holiness."
The number of brothers in the United States has plummeted from 12,300 in 1965 to 4,700 today-- a decline of 62%. Their average age is 70. The number of brothers is on the rise, however, in Africa, India, and South America.
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Militant Muslims terrorize Pakistani Christians, priest reports March 30, 2011
Pakistan is under siege by a "kind of Mafia" of Islamic extremists, according to a prominent Catholic priest there. Militant Muslims are responsible for the deaths of prominent public figures like Shahbaz Bhatti and Salman Taseer, Father Bonnie Mendes told the AsiaNews service. These killings, he said, have raised fears that any other politician who dares to challenge the nation's blasphemy law will suffer the same fate.
Father Mendes—the former executive secretary of the Pakistani bishops' justice-and-peace commission—said that the militants "cause suffering for the whole nation." The government is unable to control their activities, he said.
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Ukrainian prelate visits Rome, pushes for patriarchate March 30, 2011
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv, the newly elected head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on March 30. At his regular Wednesday audience, the Pope greeted the Ukrainian prelate, promising his prayerful support. Speaking in Ukrainian, the Pontiff praised the Ukrainian Church, "which is a part of the people who over 1,000 years ago received Baptism at Kyiv." He voiced his confidence that the Ukrainian Church will flourish "in accordance with her own tradition and spirituality, in communion with the See of Peter."
Archbishop Shevchuk said that when he spoke with the Pope—in the first meeting since his election last week to head the largest Eastern Church in communion with the Holy See—he would renew the appeal for Vatican recognition of a Ukrainian Catholic patriarchate.
The Ukrainian Church has long sought that distinction, and members of the Church routinely refer to their leader as a "patriarch." Pope John Paul II encouraged the request, but other Vatican officials have resisted the idea, citing the virulent opposition of the Russian Orthodox Church. Pope Benedict XVI has not offered any direct public comment on the idea.
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