WASHINGTON—Catholic Radio Weekly, a U.S. bishops’ audio program, will feature speakers on Rwanda, gay marriage and Pope John Paul I the week of September 14. The program can be heard on or downloaded from WWW.CATHOLICRADIOWEEKLY.COM.

Tim Horner, professor at Villanova University, describes a visit to Rwanda sponsored by Catholic Relief Services’ college partnership program. "You see signs of the genocide everywhere and it can be overwhelming and emotional. But there’s also a real sense of progress, there’s a sense of solidarity, there’s a sense of community building, and there’s really a oneness of purpose in Rwanda," says Horner.

Speaking on issues in the November elections, Rick McCord of the USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life & Youth discusses the Catholic Church’s position on same sex marriage. "We also stand for the integrity of marriage…marriage that has a particular structure and a meaning and that comes in creation, from the beginning, that says to us 'this is a unique union of a man and a woman," says McCord. "It’s not right to redefine it, because that in itself then creates a kind of injustice in society."

In Catholic News Service’s  Rome Report, John Thavis looks back at the short but significant pontificate of John Paul I.  "In his public talks, he had a folksy style that made him sound more like a parish priest than supreme pontiff," recalls Thavis.

In the Catholic News Service Spotlight, Regina Linskey reports on renewed interest in the Aramaic language and some programs that have been developed to teach it in Syria.
"Aramaic, the language of Jesus, that flourished in villages thousands of years ago, is being kept alive in the Syrian desert," says Linskey.

Susan Wills of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities discusses an American Psychological Association report that challenges the findings of studies that link abortion and mental health problems among women who have suffered both. "The key to abortion-related mental health, in their view, is the 'unwantedness’ of the child, as if this were an immutable property inherent in human DNA."

Paulist Father Larry Rice explains what a "personal prelature" is in the Catholic Church and introduces the only organization that the Vatican has recognized as one to date, Opus Dei. "Unlike religious orders, institutes of consecrated life or societies of apostolic life, members of personal prelatures do not take religious vows," says Rice.

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