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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Sep-13-2005
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Vatican delegation tours devastated regions of Gulf Coast
BILOXI, Miss. (CNS) -- Archbishop Paul Cordes, the Vatican's top humanitarian aid official, urged Biloxi Catholics Sept. 12 not to lose hope in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and assured them that with God's help they would "be able to overcome" the struggles they faced from the devastation. The archbishop, who is president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum," which coordinates charity efforts, was sent to the Gulf Coast region by Pope Benedict XVI as part of a delegation visiting the hurricane-devastated areas of the United States. He was accompanied by Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick and Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, for a three-day visit that included visiting evacuees in Baton Rouge, La., going on a helicopter tour of New Orleans and driving through hard-hit areas in Biloxi. Archbishop Cordes said his visit was "a sign from the pope that he'd like to be close to you and show his compassion."
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Archbishop Dolan sees 'genuine renewal' of priests coming
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- "I believe we're on the brink of a genuine renewal of life of the priests of the United States," Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee said at a symposium on priests' spirituality Sept. 12. He said American priests have undergone "intense upheaval" in the past four years, but in the church's long history "seasons of defeat and decline unfailingly lead to renewal." Archbishop Dolan, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, was keynote speaker at the half-day symposium. Held at the Life Cycle Center of The Catholic University of America in Washington, the symposium focused on the recently published book, "Stewards of God's Mysteries: Priestly Spirituality in a Changing Church." The book was developed out of a series of consultations sponsored by the National Federation of Priests' Councils. It is intended to offer practical guidance in priestly spiritual development similar to that given over the past three decades by "The Spiritual Renewal of the American Priesthood," long a staple in many priests' libraries.
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Vatican official says pain, suffering strengthen search for God
BATON ROUGE, La. (CNS) -- On the four-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the U.S., a special envoy of Pope Benedict XVI told displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina that pain and suffering, produced either by a natural disaster or a terrorist act, must prompt Christians to strengthen their search for God. Archbishop Paul Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum," which coordinates charity efforts, was the main celebrant and homilist at a Mass Sept. 11 at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Baton Rouge. About half of the overflow congregation consisted of hurricane evacuees from the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which was devastated by the Aug. 29 storm. Archbishop Cordes spent three days visiting the hurricane-affected areas of the Gulf Coast. The pope sent the Vatican's top humanitarian aid official to the region as a sign of his personal solidarity.
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New Orleans clergy want voice for poor in rebuilding efforts
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- As News Orleans looks to rebuild, a group of Catholic and Protestant clergy want a seat at the planning table for their poor and working-class African-American parishioners. At a Washington news conference, they proposed a long-term relief plan that builds on the community organizational structure that parishes and congregations already had in place in poor and working-class neighborhoods prior to the destruction by Hurricane Katrina. "We don't want to just receive things. We want to participate. We want you to include us at the table," Edmundite Father Michael Jacques told Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who was also at the Sept. 12 news conference. Father Jacques is pastor of St. Peter Claver Church in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. Treme was completely flooded when several levees broke releasing water from Lake Pontchartrain into much of the city. The priest is one of the founding members of All Congregations Together, known as ACT, a coalition of 30 Catholic and Protestant congregations founded in 1989 to improve conditions in their neighborhoods.
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Catholics in Alabama fishing town look to rebuild lives after storm
BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. (CNS) -- The first sign of trouble in the small fishing village of Bayou La Batre is the muddy 60-foot shrimp boat washed ashore and tilted to its side. The boat, in full view during a Sunday morning outdoor Mass Sept. 11 for St. Margaret parishioners, served as a constant reminder of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, not that these parishioners needed any reminders. Many in the town had lost everything in the storm. Near the coast, all that remained of houses were the wooden pilings. The wooden frames, furniture and belongings were tossed about 100 feet away in the woods. Homes farther inland had been soaked in water surges that covered their entire first floors. Many of the town's 2,300 residents also lost their jobs in the fishing industry devastated because fish processing plants were destroyed and pollution is harming the waters once rich with oysters, crabs and shrimp.
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WORLD
Two Americans, Australian named to Catholic-Muslim commission
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI nominated two U.S. university professors and an Australian Jesuit to be part of a Vatican commission that promotes Catholic-Muslim dialogue. Sandra Keating, a professor of theology at Providence College in Rhode Island, Lamin Sanneh, a Yale Divinity School professor, and Jesuit Father Daniel Madigan, director of the Institute for the Study of Religions and Culture at Rome's Gregorian University, were chosen to be members of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations With the Muslims. The pope also appointed three other experts from Italy, Spain and India to serve the five-year terms. The Vatican released a list of the six new consultors in a written press statement Sept. 10. The commission, which is part of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, works "to study and promote religious relations with Muslims," said the council's secretary, Archbishop Pier Luigi Celata.
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New church in Azerbaijan funded in part by Pope John Paul II
BAKU, Azerbaijan (CNS) -- A new church being built in the predominantly Muslim nation of Azerbaijan is funded in part by the late Pope John Paul II. After Pope John Paul visited this former Soviet republic in May 2002, the Azerbaijani government donated some land in the capital, Baku, to the Catholic Church. Proceeds from the late pope's books and an annual end-of-the-year Vatican auction in 2004 were earmarked for the construction of a church and for funding church-run social programs in Azerbaijan. Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and various governmental and religious representatives attended a special ceremony Sept. 10 in Baku to lay the first cornerstone of the new church. Dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, the new church will hold up to 200 parishioners. There are about 150 Azerbaijani Catholics and another 120 foreign Catholics residing in Azerbaijan, according to Fides, the Vatican's missionary news agency.
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PEOPLE
Jordan's king says he hopes meeting with pope helps further dialogue
ROME (CNS) -- Jordan's King Abdullah II said he hoped his meeting with Pope Benedict XVI would help further peaceful dialogue between Muslims and the Western world. The king and his wife, Queen Rania, visited the pope Sept. 12 in a private audience at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome. While the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published a picture of the two men greeting each other inside the apostolic residence, the Vatican issued no statement on the substance or outcome of the meeting. According to Jordan's state news agency, Petra, the king's visit was part of a working tour aimed at fostering Muslim-Christian dialogue and helping "to clarify the true image of Islam which calls ... for establishing peace" all over the world. The following day at The Catholic University of America in Washington, King Abdullah said the pope "spoke of his respect for the Muslim people, and he reaffirmed the church's commitment to dialogue and peace."
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Baby delivered from brain-dead Virginia woman dies at 5 weeks old
ARLINGTON, Va. (CNS) -- Susan Anne Catherine Torres, the 5-week-old baby of Jason and Susan Torres, died at 12:01 a.m. Sept. 12 of heart failure following surgery for a perforated intestine at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, according to the hospital's statement. The child was born Aug. 2 after a three-month struggle to keep her mother alive. Susan Torres suffered brain damage in May from melanoma cancer that had spread to her brain and was kept on life support until the baby could be born. The mother died Aug. 3 after life support was removed. "After the efforts of this summer to bring her into the world, this is obviously a devastating loss," said Justin Torres, the baby's uncle, in the family's statement. "We wish to thank all the people who sustained us in prayer over the past 17 weeks. It was our fondest wish that we could have been able to share Susan's homecoming with the world."
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Military priest helps Mississippi pastor pay visit to damaged church
PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (CNS) -- One pastor's journey to his beloved parish in a Mississippi town battered by Hurricane Katrina began with a Catholic chaplain he had never met. As the only Catholic chaplain for military troops in that area, Precious Blood Father Bill Stang turned to the Internet to locate a local priest to cover Sunday Masses after he returned to Rensselaer, Ind. The chaplain, a lieutenant colonel with the Indiana National Guard, was searching for Catholic churches in Gulfport, Miss., in the Biloxi Diocese. He found three churches -- St. Therese, St. Ann and St. John. He dialed St. Therese first, and it was a good choice. The other two had been destroyed. Josephite Father Raymond Carignan, pastor, answered, and told the chaplain that a fellow Josephite, Father Bartholomew Endslow, 84, would help. Father Endslow was staying with Father Carignan because his own parish, Our Mother of Mercy in nearby Pass Christian, was decimated. Because of Father Stang's military connections, Father Endslow was able to return to Our Lady of Mercy and retrieve from the rubble some sacramental records, a tabernacle and the chalice his family gave him at his 1949 ordination. "If only I knew how my people are, then I would be so relieved," said Father Endslow.
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Amid storm debris, undamaged picture of Jesus restores a man's faith
DAPHNE, Ala. (CNS) -- Donald Thomas, a 73-year-old artist from Biloxi, Miss., lost hundreds of his paintings that had been securely fastened to his wall when the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina filled up the first and second floors of his home. The only thing left on his walls after the waters receded was a plate with an image of Jesus on it hanging on a nail. The sight of that plate, somehow spared from mud that covered everything else remaining in the house, made an impression on Thomas that he will never forget. "I saw it and I said, 'I'm going to church from now on,'" Thomas told Catholic News Service Sept. 11 just outside a Red Cross shelter in Daphne. "I'm not claiming to be a Holy Roller either," stressed Thomas, who said he was raised Catholic but was not a churchgoer. He said the plate impressed him so much because it was one of the first things he saw after a harrowing night of hanging onto the roof of his house for several hours. "To me, it said that God was with me the whole time."
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Bishops' president names liaison to dioceses hit by Katrina
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston and Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta to act as his liaison with New Orleans Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes, Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb of Mobile, Ala., and the bishops of all the dioceses damaged by Hurricane Katrina. In a Sept. 12 announcement, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., said he had asked the two archbishops to take on the role so they can keep him briefed on the ways the USCCB can best serve the needs of the local archdioceses and dioceses in the long recovery ahead. Bishop Skylstad also asked Archbishops Fiorenza and Gregory to offer direct support to the region's bishops as they care for the needs of survivors, console those who have lost loved ones, and rebuild their ministries. Archbishop Fiorenza will be in communication primarily with Archbishop Hughes and the bishops of Louisiana and Archbishop Gregory with Archbishop Lipscomb and the bishops of Mississippi and Alabama.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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