Live from RNA

Keeping with custom, the weekend's annual religion-writers conference in DC saw an appearance from the local ordinary, as Archbishop Donald Wuerl returned to his "education bishop" forté and spoke on the future of Catholic schools:

(parts 2-4)

His controversial proposal to save several struggling parochial schools by converting them into non-sectarian charters now implemented, late last week saw the release of Wuerl's 30-page mega-pastoral on Catholic education in the capital. However, as it is election season and -- at least, so say the e.mails -- there's but one issue of any import whatsoever, here's Wuerl's take on that, too.

At a panel on immigration, attendees also heard from Kevin Appleby, the USCCB's lead full-time hand on migration and refugee policy.

For all the rest, much more video on the RNA site.

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On an in-house note, congrats to the Boston Globe's Michael Paulson, who cleaned up with an unprecedented two-fer of the beat's top national awards for writing and reporting.

Now blogging for Beantown's paper of record, Paulson recently commemorated the fifth anniversary of Cardinal Sean O'Malley's search and rescue mission in the scandal-rocked see with an impressive profile/video package, with transcript to boot.

While the friar-prelate dropped the mini-bombshell that "I found out that things were worse than I had feared" only after his 2003 arrival, the one daring God to "give me a good hurricane anyday" remained safely tucked away in the archives. Well, these archives.

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