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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jun-7-2006
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Marriage amendment fails vote despite push from religious leaders
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Just two days after religious leaders and the president renewed their support for it, a bill that would amend the Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman failed June 7 in a procedural vote in the Senate. What is known as a cloture vote to end debate and bring the bill to the floor fell 11 votes short of the 60 needed to get past cloture; the tally was 49-48. Cloture votes are often referred to as "test votes" because they tend to signal how much support a bill has, although they don't always exactly mirror final votes on the legislation itself. Beyond a cloture vote, the measure would have to pass with a two-thirds majority, or 66 votes, to move it out of the Senate. The House has not taken up its parallel legislation. At a June 5 event, President George W. Bush called on the Senate to pass the Marriage Protection Amendment, and Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali said the vote was "an opportunity which should not be squandered."
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Catholic hospitals urged to lead way on hospice, palliative care
ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- All Catholic hospitals should be "making the end-of-life journey a blessed and sacred one" for their patients by offering hospice and palliative care, a Sister of Providence told her fellow Catholic health leaders. Sister Karin Dufault, executive director of the Supportive Care Coalition: Pursuing Excellence in Palliative Care in Portland, Ore., addressed a plenary session of the Catholic Health Association's 91st assembly June 6 in Orlando. Also speaking at the session on "Responding to the Vulnerability of Aging and the Journey at the End of Life" was therapist and author Mary Pipher, who talked about the experiences that led to her 1999 book, "Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders." Sister Karin, who worked until last year as vice president for mission leadership at Providence Health System in Seattle, said a 2004 survey by the American Hospital Association showed that 35 percent of the 536 U.S. Catholic hospitals offered hospice care and 43 percent offered palliative care. Although the numbers have improved somewhat since then, she said, "We should be at 100 percent."
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Knights petition appeals court to overturn latest pledge ruling
SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- The Knights of Columbus filed a brief asking a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reject the latest effort by a California atheist and several other parents to have the Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional because it contains the words "under God." In a friend-of-the-court, or amicus, brief filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in early June, the Knights asked the court to reverse a lower court that said it is unconstitutional to include "under God" in a pledge that minor students are required to recite in school. The brief was filed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on behalf of the Knights. Joining in the brief were six individual Knights and their families. The Supreme Court in 2004 threw out a similar challenge by Michael Newdow, filed on behalf of his school-age daughter. Newdow was among plaintiffs in a new lawsuit against various government entities and schools filed the next year. But he and most of the other plaintiffs ultimately were either dropped from the suit or dismissed by the U.S. District Court.. The remaining plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Rio Linda Union School District outside Sacramento are an unnamed woman and her child.
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Sessions offer high-tech, low-tech answers to health care problems
ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- A cutting-edge telemedicine system that brings specialists into rural hospital rooms and a low-tech, hands-on approach that takes immunizations to children in poor urban neighborhoods were among the projects featured in "innovation forums" at the Catholic Health Association's 91st annual assembly in Orlando. In all, 28 projects were chosen from more than 120 proposals for four workshop sessions during the June 4-6 convention. Pat Herr, director of Avera eICU Care at Avera McKennan Hospital and University Health Center in Sioux Falls, S.D., described the eICU Care system as "a sort of air traffic control for ICU (intensive care unit) patients." Through T1 lines, live video feeds and computer interfaces, a remote, centralized care team in Sioux Falls provides support for on-site caregivers at four rural hospitals in South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska. A T1 line is a high-speed fiber optic line that transports data.
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Bishop urges broadcasters be made to air more public interest shows
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Television stations should be required to air more public interest programming before the expected conversion of broadcast signals from analog to digital is to be completed in 2009, said the chairman of the U.S. bishops' communications committee. In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin released June 6, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., said a "substantial effort to provide programming that better serves the public" should be required of broadcasters in exchange for the new spectrum rights worth "tens of billions of dollars" that they will receive with digital broadcasting. "Today, even as the broadcasting industry continues to benefit from its subsidized use of the public airwaves, broadcasters' observance of meaningful public interest obligations has declined," Bishop Kicanas said in the letter, which was dated May 23.
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WORLD
Pope says Peter and his successors guard communion with Christ
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The apostle Peter and his legitimate successors are meant to be the loving guardians of a universal, faithful communion with Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said during his June 7 general audience. The pope prayed that "the primacy of Peter, entrusted to weak human beings, may always be exercised" in fidelity to Christ's original intentions. And, he said, he hoped that by doing so the true meaning of primacy would be "ever more recognized by our brothers and sisters not yet in full communion with us." The pope, who was continuing a series of talks on St. Peter, made the remarks outside the prepared text he read to more than 40,000 people in St. Peter's Square. St. Peter and his successors "must be the caretaker of communion with Christ" and also guide people toward universal communion, he said.
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Vatican official to Anglicans: Women bishops would destroy unity
LONDON (CNS) -- A Vatican cardinal has warned the Church of England that a move to ordain women as bishops would destroy any chance of full unity with the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that if the Church of England adopted such a resolution the "shared partaking of the one Lord's table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear into the far and ultimately unreachable distance." He said, "Instead of moving toward one another, we would simply coexist alongside each other." His remarks came in a speech to a private meeting of the Church of England bishops in Market Bosworth, England, just four months after the bishops agreed to set up a working group to outline a process through which women might be consecrated as bishops. Although three of the world's Anglican provinces have already agreed to consecrate women as bishops, Cardinal Kasper said decisions made by the Church of England had a "particular importance" because they gave a "strong indication of the direction in which the communion as a whole was heading."
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Volunteers jump into action to help Indonesian quake victims
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Church people and many others who have jumped into action in response to the earthquake in Indonesia represent enormous generosity, said an Australian priest of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Indonesia. "The contributions kept pouring in," Father John O'Doherty said June 6 from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in a news update posted on the Oblates' Web site. Six tons of rice were unloaded from trucks by local youths who "quickly rallied to our call," he said. Father O'Doherty said a team of doctors, chemists and nurses from a parish in Jakarta, where the Oblates are working, had sprung into action after news broke about the quake that shook the island of Java, killed more than 5,700 and left more than 500,000 homeless. Just a day after the May 27 quake, the so-called "shock troops" stocked up on supplies and necessary commodities, some of which were priced up to four times the normal rate, and left for Yogyakarta. Upon the shock troops' arrival, he said, they immediately began searching out the victims and had attended to up to 200 patients in one day, Father O'Doherty said.
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PEOPLE
L'Arche founder finds value of life in relationships
CHICAGO (CNS) -- Jean Vanier spoke slowly, gently, with measured cadence. His tall figure was stooped at the shoulders, as though he was bending down to hear the whispered words of a child. His words, too, were full of gentleness, as he spoke of the need for love in the world, his main topic of a talk at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Vanier, who founded the L'Arche community of homes where mentally disabled adults live with nondisabled associates, came to Chicago from his home in France to accept the theological school's Blessed are the Peacemakers Award May 3. He spoke to the school's faculty and students the same day, before having lunch with members of the media. Vanier, who is 77, started L'Arche by inviting two mentally disabled men to share his home in France in 1964; there are now 126 L'Arche communities in 31 countries. In his lifetime, he said, he has noticed that people who have mental disabilities often have great faith, but they never speak of "Christ" or "the Lord." "They always talk about Jesus," Vanier said. "It's a personal relationship."
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Put tragedy 'in hands of God,' pastor says after Indianapolis murders
INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) -- Father Michael O'Mara can still picture the two Covarrubias boys proudly standing in front of the altar May 21 preparing to receive their first holy Communion while their parents and their extended family beamed with joy. Less than two weeks later, the boys were shot and killed in their Indianapolis home, along with their parents and three other family members. The seven murders June 1 marked the worst mass killing in Indianapolis history. People were shocked and horrified by the killings, which also left their mark on Father O'Mara -- the priest who gave the homilies at funeral Masses for family members June 6 and 7. As he prepared to give the homilies, he relied upon his memories of the family while he tried to make sense of the deaths. He could still see the two brothers -- Alberto, 11, and David, 8 -- sitting at Sunday Mass on either side of their father, Alberto Covarrubias Sr., 56. He could still see the faces of the boys' mother -- 46-year-old Emma Valdez -- and her two children from a previous marriage, Magno Albarran, 29, and Flora Albarran, 22. Then there was the face of Flora's 5-year-old son, Luis Albarran. Each of the seven had been shot in the head and the body during an attempted robbery in their home, according to the Indianapolis Police Department.
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Catholic high school students use prom night as chance to help others
WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) -- Prom nights usually provide a chance for students to lavish attention on themselves, from glitzy gowns and tuxedos to special hairdos and limousines. But this year, a student at St. Mark's High School in Wilmington did more than that. Andrea Davies turned the annual senior prom into a time to think about others by arranging for free limousine rides and dinners for five teens with mental disabilities who are friends with St. Mark's students through the statewide Blue-Gold program. Blue-Gold is a Delaware program that matches high school athletes with people with disabilities for various activities. "We wanted to make it a special night not just for the seniors and their dates, but for someone else, too," said Davies, a member of St. Mark's Blue-Gold Club. So while the seniors and their dates celebrated at the prom, a group of Blue-Gold buddies and their guests enjoyed free dinner and limousine transportation. The event, dubbed "Prime Night," took place May 26. Five Blue-Gold buddies gathered with their families and guests at St. Mark's and took limousine rides to restaurants on Wilmington's riverfront.
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Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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