Megachurch pastor Rick Warren has become an outsized evangelical superstar: best-selling author of “The Purpose Driven Life” series, pastoral mentor and even political referee.

Now Warren is finding a new purpose: tackling his outsized waistline.

Warren, 58, says the revelation came about a year ago, during a marathon baptism session of about 800 people at Saddleback Church.

As he struggled to submerge members of his flock in the baptismal pool one by one, he realized his parishioners were heavy and that he, too, was fat, setting a terrible example.

Warren says his gradual weight gain — about two to three pounds a year — has added up over his 30 years as a pastor. To lose the extra pounds and inspire others to do the same, the former football player enlisted the help of three doctors.

Warren recruited a family physician, Dr. Mark Hyman; Dr. Mehmet Oz, New York Times best-selling author and host of NBC’s “The Dr. Oz Show”; and Dr. Daniel Amen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, and the lone Christian in the mix.

Together they launched “The Daniel Plan: God’s Prescription for Your Health,” named after a passage in the biblical Book of Daniel where the prophet and fellow Israelites refuse to accept “royal” food and wine from the Babylonian king, opting for water and simple vegetables instead.

The Daniel Plan encourages parishioners to link into Saddleback’s vast network of small Bible study groups as support systems to get fit. Congregants exercise together at weekly classes such as “Walk & Worship” and “Pump & Praise.” The three doctors offer tips on healthy eating and participants can create a health profile online.

Since the launch of the plan a year ago, more than 15,000 people have signed up and participants have shed a combined total of at least 250,000 pounds, according to the church. The 6-foot-3 Warren, who started the program at 295 pounds, shed 60 pounds in the first year.

Amen, a Saddleback member, said “churches are by and large a place of illness.”

“I’m tired of fat football coaches and fat pastors,” Amen said.

The advantage of losing weight in a church, he said, is the support of the built-in community. “When you’re surrounded by other people who have the same values, and they have the same health habits, you’re going to do so much better,” he said.

Tammie Allen, 41, a mother of two and a Saddleback parishioner, joined the Daniel Plan with other members of her Monday night Bible study group.

“You can’t do it alone, and you can’t do it without God’s power,” said Allen, who started exercising with other Saddleback parishioners and chose more fruits and vegetables. So far, she’s dropped 97 pounds.

“My daughter tells me all the time she loves being able to put her arms around me.”

Jim and Melanie Black, who just celebrated their 11-year anniversary, joined the program together and have dropped their taste for fast food. They say the motivation behind the change is noteworthy — it’s not for vanity’s sake.

“We’re doing it so we can serve God at a higher level,” said Jim Black.

Chiquita Seals, 45, a single mother of two, is so far the church’s biggest loser.

“In the beginning I thought, ‘This is just another diet program,’” she said. Seals said she assumed she was “going to be eating rabbit food.”

After all, Seals said, she had tried other diet programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, but this is the only one that stuck. When she began the Daniel Plan she weighed 267 pounds. She now weighs 135.

“All my life I thought that I could never be used by God,” Seals confessed in a video posted on the church’s website. But after losing the pounds, “I know I can be used by God.”

To be sure, the program has attracted scrutiny. The church posted an online response to those who questioned the use of non-Christian doctors to help lead the program, saying that members “will never compromise our belief that Jesus is the only way to heaven or that the Bible is the 100 percent completely infallible and perfect Word of God.”

“These doctors are helping us as friends,” the statement concludes. “But are in no way advising our church on spiritual matters.”

For his part, Warren still hopes to drop another 30 pounds. And, in typical Warren fashion, he’s spreading his message to other churches. The bottom line, Amen said, is those looking to lose weight are in luck.

“If for whatever reason your family won’t do it with you,” he said, “well, you now have the family of Saddleback.”

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Catholic hospitals have joined forces with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to protest rules in the new health care program of the government, because it may require them to lend free birth control coverage to their employees.

Leaders from the Catholic health care sector and the USCCB have united to seek a broadening of the conscience clause under the rules of the health care program, particularly with regard to religious exemption, because the language used to describe it is too narrow.

Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, said in a statement, “As it stands, the language is not broad enough to protect our Catholic health providers,” National Catholic Register reported.

Keehan said, “Catholic hospitals are a significant part of this nation’s health care, especially in the care of the most vulnerable. It is critical that we be allowed to serve our nation without compromising our conscience,” NCR reported.

Keehan’s statement is significant because in the final weeks prior to the passage of the Obama administration’s health-insurance reform bill, she endorsed its passage despite the fact that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed it.

Keehan told the AP that she still supports the government’s expanded health insurance coverage program. However, she believes that the religious exemption clause needs to be widened, and she plans to lobby for its expansion.

Under the government’s proposed religious exemption rule, the clause at issue is the definition of a religious employer, which is described as one who seeks to teach religious values, employs and serves people who share the same faith, and is nonprofit.

The definition does not correlate with Catholic hospitals, which employ some 640,000 people of a range of different faiths without discrimination. It also does not cover educational institutions and organizations that serve disadvantaged populations, including the homeless and the hungry.

Exemption is too narrow

“Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a “religious” exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social-service agencies and healthcare providers,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, chairman of the USCCB, told NCR.

The USCCB is pushing a bill that will strengthen religious freedom within the new health law, called the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179), which was introduced by Reps. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.).

CHA will proffer comments

Keehan, who is with the Daughters of Charity, said the CHA will proffer its remarks to The department of Health and Human Services, which is accepting comments from all concerned parties before it renders a final decision on the conscience clause later this year.

Keehan told NCR, “We will be submitting written comments to HHS and will continue our dialogue with government officials on the essential need for adequate conscience protections.”

Government spokesman Richard Sorian told the AP, “We look forward to hearing from the public as we work to strike the balance between providing access to proven prevention and respecting religious beliefs.”

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The president of the UK Catholic Medical Association expressed concern recently that covert euthanasia is being widely practiced in the country.

Dr. Clare Walker, president of the U.K. CMA said that she believes mercy killing is being widely practiced in the National Health Service, especially in cases that appear to be end of life situations, LifeSiteNews said.

Walker said, “[E]uthanasia is being widely practiced in the NHS in an official way.” She said oftentimes healthcare managers and professionals contact her to describe “their experience of witnessing repeated instances of unofficial active euthanasia in their local areas,” according to LifeSiteNews.

LifeSiteNews said the “Euthanasia Prevention Coalition regularly receives phone calls and emails from family members and friends of people whose medical caregivers appear to be intentionally causing their death.”

However, both Walker and LifeSiteNews admitted that there are no real statistics and the stories they get, while plentiful, are basically anecdotal.

One reason for the occurrence of euthanasia, Walker told Scottish Catholic Observer, is that “The standards of medical ethics and of interpretation of existing legislation appear to vary greatly around the country and from one organization to the next, even in the same local area.”

Misuse of LCP

Another reason is the misuse of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which was developed in the 1990s at the Marie Curie hospice and royal Liverpool Hospital, so that palliative care for end-of-life patients could improve, the Scottish Catholic Observer said.

The LCP provides criteria that must be followed before ending life-sustaining treatment and applying palliative care, LifeSiteNews said. However, reports have indicated that LCP has been used in the cases of people who were not dying, such as dehydrating someone to death on the grounds of LCP.

Walker said, “If it is used out of context, then it could be used to the detriment of patients e.g. a patient comes into a resuscitation bay, and it is not always clear if a condition is acute and can be treated,” LifeSiteNews reported.

A recent report on crematorium records showed that 23% of all deaths in one city in the U.K. were people put on LCP without any definite diagnosis of their stage of life, LifeSiteNews said.

LifeSiteNews mentions the case of in the U.S. of Terri Schiavo, who was not dying, but who was withheld hydration, as an example of euthanasia. However, if a person is “actively dying and/or is unable to assimilate H & N, [t]hat person is actually dying and the provision of H & N provides little to no benefit and may cause suffering.” In such case, it would not be euthanasia.

No ethics

A third reason why euthanasia occurs, Walker said, is lack of ethics especially among younger health professionals who may fear straying from protocol and/or offending superiors, Independent Catholic News said.

Walker said, “Sometimes, in addition to what is required by a protocol, which tends to assess for a single condition, you have to follow an instinct that there is something else wrong with a patient and there is nothing wrong with that. This is the art as well as the science of clinical practice,” according to Independent Catholic News.

The CMA opened membership 18 months ago to all healthcare professionals and health managers. Many newly-admitted are directly employed in clinical care, and there have been reports of overt bullying, Independent Catholic News reported.

Walker said every healthcare professional should be expected to treat a patient in the same way that they would care for a member of their own family, according to Independent Catholic News.

Not widespread

Gordon Macdonald of the Care not Killing Alliance said his organization shares the concerns of Walker. However, they are less certain that euthanasia is widespread, Scottish Catholic Observer said.

Macdonald told Scottish Catholic Observer, “We would not say it’s widely practiced. The pro-euthanasia lobby has claimed it is as an argument for legalizing it, but the palliative care doctors we have spoken to have told us that’s not the case. For example, though there are cases of the LCP being abused, if it’s implemented properly in the last hours of life that’s not euthanasia.”

Macdonald told Scottish Catholic Observer, “Of course, we share concerns over abuses. Anecdotally we hear stories of certain care homes with questionable practices, but generally we would not accept it’s widespread.”

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Decreased financial and political commitment was blamed recently for the rash of measles outbreaks in 30 African countries.

If the trend continues, by 2012 some 500,000 may die from measles, reversing the gains of the last 18 years that were made against the disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Severe measles can incur complications such as blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhea and dehydration, ear infections or severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia.

Measles deaths among children under five years old fell to 118,000 in 2008 from 733,000 in 2000.

The disease tends to occur among poorly nourished young children with the most severe complications, according to Reuters.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the African countries that had the largest outbreaks are Zimbabwe, Chad and Nigeria.

Some 8,000 migrant children in Bulgaria also had the highly-contagious disease during the period,

WHO expert Peter Strebel said the World Health Assembly’s 193 member states, in their annual meeting in Geneva last Thursday, decided to aim for at least 90 percent measles vaccination coverage nationally by 2015, Reuters reported.

However these goals, while achievable, require a long and determined commitment by the states themselves.

Strebel said the assembly will also aim for 80 percent coverage in every district, and to reduce measles to less than five per million population, Voice of America said.

They also strive to reduce measles mortality by 95 percent compared to 2000 levels.  It costs less than $1 to vaccinate a child against measles, but two doses are required for full protection, according to Voice of America.

Meanwhile large cases of measles have also erupted in the UK, the USA and parts of Europe due to a flawed study that linked measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination to autism.

In Britain vaccination rates dropped below 90 percent last year following the autism scare, Strebel said.  However, after the study was proven to be flawed, in the U.K. in fact there have more recently been improvements in vaccination levels and disease spread has fallen to very low levels, Reuters reported.

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