WASHINGTON - Catholic and evangelical social-justice leaders on Thursday urged President Bush to use his upcoming State of the Union address to turn around what they called his faltering moral legacy.

Frequently referring to the state of American public policy as ''shameful,'' the representatives of five major religious organizations said Bush has sidestepped pressing religious concerns, despite his recurrent religious rhetoric.

Specifically, they said the White House has failed to deal with growing poverty at home and abroad, turned a blind eye to torture, ignored climate change, and neglected the human suffering from the war in Iraq.

''We have yet to fully sort out the legacy of an explicitly evangelical president, who sadly has had such a truncated vision of what a moral leadership looks like,'' said the Rev. David Gushee, president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.

''I am hopeful that the evangelical community as a whole has been chastened by that and is open to reconsidering what we think a truly evangelical moral leadership would look like."

The four other participants were the Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA; Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action; the Rev. Paul de Vries, board member of the National Association of Evangelicals; and Sister Anne Curtis of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy.

- Religion News Service

Creationists launch scientific journal

Answers in Genesis, the Christian ministry that founded the $27 million Creation Museum in Kentucky last year, has now launched an online technical journal to publish studies consistent with its biblical views.

The Answers Research Journal will disseminate research conducted by creationist theologians and scientists ''that are consistent with the biblical account of origins.''

Ken Hamm, president of Answers in Genesis, said submissions will be peer- reviewed, but the journal's guidelines discourage asking noncreationists to conduct those reviews.

The journal is needed because of academic bias in most scientific journals against creationists, Hamm said.

''As soon as you overtly say it's to do with creation, they say it's not science and refuse to publish it,'' he said.

Earlier this month, a top panel of U.S. scientists said that belief in the theory of evolution and religious faith are not incompatible, but that creationism has no place in science classes.

- Religion News Service

Vatican liturgist says no return to the past

VATICAN CITY - A Vatican official says Pope Benedict XVI doesn't want to roll back the modernizing liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

The pope last year removed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass, a rite that was all but swept away by the Second Vatican Council. But Monsignor Guido Marini told Vatican radio that Benedict only wants to maintain continuity with Roman Catholic tradition.

''This may also require, in some cases, the recovery of precious and important elements that along the way have been lost or forgotten,'' Marini said in a Jan. 19 interview.

On Jan. 13, the pontiff celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel using the original main altar, facing away from worshippers during parts of the prayer. Under the modernizing reforms, clergy generally celebrate Mass facing the altar.

Marini said special conditions of the church allowed the stance, which he said was in line with Vatican II, according to Catholic News Service.

- The Associated Press

Churches on potential heritage sites list

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The National Park Service announced Tuesday that two Birmingham churches significant to the civil-rights movement are under consideration as World Heritage sites.

Bethel Baptist Church and Sixteenth Street Baptist Church are on a tentative list that will be nominated over the next 10 years under a new category, ''Civil Rights Sites in the Southern United States.''

A 1963 bombing at Sixteenth Street Baptist killed four young girls and helped galvanize the civil-rights movement. Bethel Baptist was bombed three times between 1956 and 1962 and served as a staging ground for civil-rights leaders.

- Religion News Service