In today's Catholic Church, you can stick a diocese with $16 million in debt and sexually exploit one of your employees -- and still manage to get a gig soaking up sun in Arizona. As SF Weekly staff writer Ron Russell reports, G. Patrick Ziemann, the former bishop of Santa Rosa, Calif., once forced a young priest to wear a beeper so he could summon him for oral sex. Now, thanks to friends in high places within the church, Ziemann's a regular on the Tucson party circuit -- and isn't ruling out one day heading another diocese

Rare indeed is the pro jock whose activism extends beyond the United Way -- rarer still that professional athletes venture into politically charged territory. Well, so much for the status quo. Last month at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo hosted a press conference to kick off Battin' 1000, a campaign that aims to raise at least $1 million to construct a pro-life education center for the American Life League near the anti-abortion organization's Stafford, Va., headquarters. Battin' 1000's chairman, former Oakland A's third baseman Sal Bando, says the cause has been endorsed by 90 current and former players, managers and owners, Mike Seely writes in Riverfront Times.

As American bombs fall on Iraq, songwriters across the county feel compelled to put their thoughts to music. Whether they be kick-ass country anthems or anti-war folk songs, they follow in a long tradition of American songs about war, from the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag." Local Planet Weekly writer Jeremy Hadley asks songwriters around the country about the deep emotions driving them to lay a bed of music beneath our debate about the war.