News Round Up - 10 September 2014

Here's another collection of the some of the news you may have missed:

• Data collected recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that - for the first time in American history - married people no longer comprise the majority of the population in the United States of America (or at least since this data was first collected in 1976). Taking together with the continually declining birth rate - in 2013 it fell to 1.87 children per woman,  below the figure 2.1 needed to maintain the current population - this is troubling. And, no, over-population isn't a danger.

• I've always thought of the penny as an unreasonable part of U.S. currency and recent news confirms this thought: The U.S. mint lost more $100,000 in the production of pennies (and nickels) last year.

• The National Football League (NFL) collected more than $9,500,000,000 in profits in 2012, beating out the profits of any another national sport (Major League Baseball came in second with $7,000,000,000 in profits). The combined revenues in 2012 of the NFL, MLB, NCAA, NASCAR, NBA, and the Premier League totaled a whopping $33,700,000,000. Curiously, no one calls for any of these monies (not even part of the profits) to be used on the poor. Imagine what the churches could do if peopled contributed to charitable causes with the same energy!

• For months now we have been rightly hearing of the plight of Christians in Iraq and in Syria at the hands of the Islamic State and news of the plight of Christians in Nigeria under Boko Haram is coming to light, but we have not yet heard much about the plight of Christians in Libya where Catholics now feel "trapped and helpless" as the Dawn of Libya grows in strength. In three different parts of the world Christians are suffering persecution from militant Islamic groups, and these three are not the only ones active in the world.

• The Supreme of Court of Louisiana recently decided that if a penitent chooses to "waive" the seal of the confessional, a confessor can be required to reveal what he learned within the Sacrament of Penance. The Diocese of Baton Rouge has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States. This explains why the confessional seal cannot be violated.

• Archeologists digging at Tokat Castle in Turkey have unearthed dungeons where it is believed Prince Vlad III the Impaler - the historical origin of the legends of Count Dracula - was held captive in the early 1400s.

• The President of the Philippines, Benito S. Aquino III, has a introduced a bill that would create a new sovereign - mostly Muslim - region in the south Philippines aimed at ending more than forty years of Islamic rebel activity. In the long run, this is not likely a good idea.