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NOTE: The Vatican released this morning a transcript of Pope Benedict XVI’s press conference aboard the papal plane en route to Australia for World Youth Day. As is the custom under Benedict XVI, the Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, asked journalists to submit questions in advance and then selected five to be presented to the pope. Benedict XVI responded to two of the questions in English and the other three in Italian. The following is a rush NCR translation of the entire exchange.

By Peter Finney Jr., Catholic News Service

NEW ORLEANS -- Confirming decisions he had announced in April in a post-Katrina realignment plan for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes signed letters July 3 closing 18 parishes and either merging them with others or changing their status to mission churches.

Those closings will take effect in the near future upon the reassignment of pastors, said Fr. Michael Jacques, chairman of the archdiocesan pastoral plan steering committee. The closing parishes will have the opportunity to celebrate a final Mass or prayer service sometime in August.

Matthew Smucker’s article, “What Is to Be Done? Assessing the Antiwar Movement” in the June 26, 2008 edition of www.commondreams.org got my attention. I read the readers’ responses and shares the same frustrations. For all the work in getting Democrats elected to Congress in 2006, we have achieved little. Spineless Democrats, headed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, engage in a foot race to see which one will cave into President Bush faster. After the Congress approved a bill on war spending with deadlines, Bush vetoed it. Then, instead of demanding that Bush approve a bill that they would approve, the spineless Democrats approved Bush’s war budget to “support the troops.”

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

Against a backdrop of both enthusiasm and controversy, Australia's Cardinal George Pell tonight presided over the opening Mass of the 2008 edition of World Youth Day, before a crowd of more than 150,000 people gathered in the colorfully titled spot of Barangaroo, a former wharf in downtown Sydney named for the wife of an 18th century aboriginal leader.

Sometimes dubbed the "Catholic Woodstock," World Youth Day is the largest youth gathering held on a regular basis anywhere in the world. The event was founded by the late Pope John Paul II as a way of evangelizing young people and reenergizing the Catholic church.