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The article reports on the palliative care service offered at the Providence Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. Topics discussed include the arguments offered by those who support palliative care as an alternative to physician-assisted suicide, the goal of Providence's palliative care service to provide quality of life to terminal patients and the laws in the U.S. pertaining to assisted suicide. Also discussed are the political, moral and social issues associated with assisted suicide.

The article discusses the role of Roman Catholics as caregivers for AIDS patients during the 1980s and 1990s AIDS crisis in the U.S. Topics include the role of nun Julie Driscoll as a caregiver, the relation of Catholics to the gay community during the AIDS crisis, and the role of caregivers in overcoming social stigma facing AIDS victims.

The article discusses the style of governance used by Roman Catholic Pope Francis. Topics include a controversy regarding the reception of communion by divorced and remarried Catholics, Francis's role in a synod of bishops to discuss family life, and Francis's letter "Amoris Laetitia." Discussions on the pope's letter by Bishop Robert McElroy with Catholics in his San Diego, California diocese are addressed.

The article reports on the prayer liturgy for same-sex couples, titled "Being Pastorally Close to Homosexual Persons: For a Welcoming Church That Excludes No One," published on the website of the bishop's conference of Belgium. Issues exhorted in the document include church assistance to those with homosexual orientation and to families with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) members and role of laypeople in coordinating prayer services for same-sex relationships.

The article focuses on the consistent ethic of life, the ethos, first made famous in the 1980s by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, that was crafted at a time when abortion, the death penalty and nuclear war were uppermost in the minds of many Catholics. Topics discussed include the belief among some bishops that the consistent ethic or "seamless garment" approach to how Catholics operate in the public square could be especially helpful and the need to bring back this ethos.

The article discusses issues related to the position of the Catholic Church on pastoral practice towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Catholics. Topics discussed include views by Brian Brown, head of the National Organization for Marriage, on common misinterpretation of Pope Francis' words on gender theory. Also mentioned is how Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey and Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Illinois emphasize Church teachings in their outreach to LGBTs.

The article informs that Father Sam Sawyer, Society of Jesus (S.J.) joins the America Media, the 113-year-old magazine and digital publishing ministry following the editor in chief, Matt Malone, S.J.

In this paper, for the first time, we report 12 kV, 1 cm2 SiC GTOs demonstrated with a novel negative bevel termination, which improves the breakdown voltage by >3.5 kV compared to the conventional multiple-zone Junction Termination Extension (JTE). The significant improvement in the blocking voltage was attributed to the elimination of the electrical field crowding in the periphery of the mesa with conventional JTE termination. This new termination has been used in both electrically and optically triggered SiC GTOs. An ultrafast turn-on speed of 70 ns has been measured on 12 kV, 1 cm2 SiC light triggered GTOs.

We present our recent developments in 4H-SiC power DMOSFETs. 4H-SiC DMOSFETs with a room temperature specific on-resistance of 3.7 mΩ-cm2 with a gate bias of 20 V, and an avalanche voltage of 1550 V with gate shorted to source, was demonstrated. A threshold voltage of 3.5 V was extracted from the power DMOSFET, and a subthreshold swing of 200 mV/dec was measured. The device was successfully scaled to an active area of 0.4 cm2, and the resulting device showed a drain current of 377 A at a forward voltage drop of 3.8 V at 25oC.

In this paper, for the first time, we report a large area (1 cm2) SiC GTO with 9 kV blocking voltage fabricated on 100-mm 4H-SiC substrates with much reduced Basal Plane Dislocation (BPD) density. The static and dynamic characteristics are described. A forward drop of 3.7 V at 100 A (100 A/cm2) is measured at 25C. A slight positive temperature coefficient of the forward drop is present at 300 A/cm2, indicating the possibility of paralleling multiple devices for higher current capability. The device exhibits extremely low leakage currents at high temperatures. The device has shown fast turn-on time of 53.9 nsec, and ~3.5 s of turn-off time, respectively. A stable forward voltage drop after electrical stress for >1000 hours has been achieved.

DC characteristics and reverse recovery performance of 4H-SiC Junction Barrier Schottky (JBS) diodes capable of blocking in excess of 10 kV with forward conduction of 20 A at a forward voltage of less than 4 V are described. Performance comparisons are made to a similarly rated 10 kV 4H-SiC PiN diode. The JBS diodes show a significant improvement in reverse recovery stored charge as compared to PiN diodes, showing half of the stored charge at 25°C and a quarter of the stored charge at 125°C when switched to 3 kV blocking. These large area JBS diodes were also employed to demonstrate the tremendous advances that have recently been made in 4H-SiC substrate quality.

Forward voltage instability, or Vf drift, has confounded high voltage SiC device makers for the last several years. The SiC community has recognized that the root cause of Vf drift in bipolar SiC devices is the expansion of basal plane dislocations (BPDs) into Shockley Stacking Faults (SFs) within device regions that experience conductivity modulation. In this presentation, we detail relatively simple procedures that reduce the density of Vf drift inducing BPDs in epilayers to <10 cm-2 and permit the fabrication of bipolar SiC devices with very good Vf stability. The first low BPD technique employs a selective etch of the substrate prior to epilayer growth to create a near on-axis surface where BPDs intersect the substrate surface. The second low BPD technique employs lithographic and dry etch patterning of the substrate prior to epilayer growth. Both processes impede the propagation of BPDs into epilayers by preferentially converting BPDs into threading edge dislocations (TEDs) during the initial stages of epilayer growth. With these techniques, we routinely achieve Vf stability yields of up to 90% in devices with active areas from 0.006 to 1 cm2, implying that the utility of the processes is not limited by device size.

The article discusses reactions by U.S. Roman Catholic Church leaders to a Vatican protocol on accountability for sexual abuse in the church. Topics include the document "Vos estis lux mundi" ("You are the light to the world") by Pope Francis, the views of the organization Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, and comments from bishops including Blase Cupich, Daniel DiNardo, and Timothy Dolan.

The article reports on the growing activities of Catholic dioceses in the U.S. due to the expansion of COVID-19 vaccination and easing of social distancing measures as of July 2021. Other topics include the move by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to allow fully vaccinated people not to wear masks in indoor settings, and the steps implemented by various parishes with respect to in-person mass attendance.

The article reveals increase in enrollment in Catholic schools after it resumed in-person teaching, while public school students were forced into online learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Topics discussed include remarks from St. Paul of the Cross School Principal Erika Mickelburgh, impact of the pandemic on schools, according to Kathy P. Mears, the interim head of the National Catholic Educational Association, and reason some public school teacher unions have called for remote learning.

The article discusses a request from Vatican authorities to delay a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (U.S.C.C.B.) vote on accountability of bishops for clergy sexual abuse. Topics include claims by bishops that mass media provokes outrage, allegations regarding sexual abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and the views of activists about the lack of significant action by U.S. bishops.

The article discusses the impact of communication using sign language by Roman Catholic Pope Francis to a group of deaf Catholics. Topics include the lack of understanding of deaf culture among many Catholic leaders in the U.S., the experiences of deaf Catholic priests, and the need for interpreters to sign the Mass for deaf people.

The article offers reflections on the apostolic exhortation "Gaudete et Exsultate" by Roman Catholic Pope Francis. Topics include the relation of the devil and the Holy Spirit to discernment, the notion of holiness or sanctity as part of Christian life, and warnings about the ancient heresies of Gnosticism and Pelagianism.

The author reports on several incidents involving the Catholic Church and government. He mentions the denial of vouchers for higher education to Catholic school students in Vermont, tax breaks to Catholic hospitals in Chicago, Illinois, and the denial of lesbian couples to be foster parents in Texas.

The article discusses a letter entitled "The Challenge of Racism Today," by Catholic Cardinal Donald Wuerl which was released on November 2017. Topics mentioned include the race-related violence that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, the crimes that affect African-Americans including human trafficking and enslavement, and the important role of prayers in the promotion of social justice.

The article focuses on confluence of natural disasters such as hurricanes in the Caribbean and in the Southeastern U.S. and a series of powerful earthquakes in Central and Southern Mexico. It also mentions proliferation of nuclear weapons increases international tensions and tradition of respecting human rights should be the first to perform generous actions of pacification. It also mentions impact of Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria.

The article announces that U.S. Catholic bishops have adopted new protocols to improve accountability in cases of sexual abuse and subsequent investigations of such abuse by clergy.