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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Jun-27-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Bush calls faith-based initiatives crowning triumph of his presidency
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- President George W. Bush told a room full of leaders of religious social organizations June 26 that his faith-based and community initiative has been one of the most significant programs to come out of his administration and urged them to continue saving the lives of those in need in the U.S. and abroad. "Groups like yours have harnessed a power that no government bureaucracy can match," Bush said during his address at the White House National Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Conference, held June 26-27. "So when I came to Washington, my goal was to ensure that government made you a full partner in our efforts to serve those in need. And the results have been uplifting," he said. The president established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives by executive order in December 2002. In essence, the program is designed to give organizations run by religious groups equal footing with secular groups in eligibility for federal funding for programs they operate to help the poor and needy.
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California Catholic bishops affirm sanctity of marriage
SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- Less than a week after couples of the same sex began marrying under California law, Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco released a statement explaining that church teaching about marriage stresses its "unique place in God's creation." In the June 23 statement, the archbishop said the purposes of marriage "are the mutual loving support of husband and wife, and their service of human life by bringing children into the world and raising them with cherishing love and true wisdom." The California Supreme Court's May 15 decision -- which struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, allowing the state's counties to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples -- became final June 16. Californians will vote in November on an initiative that would ban same-sex marriage by amending the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. San Jose Bishop Patrick J. McGrath, in a letter June 17, called "upon people of good will to respect the dignity of every person and to protect the sanctity of marriage." A June 16 statement signed by Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and his six auxiliary bishops described marriage as "deeply rooted in history and culture" and "shaped considerably by Christian tradition."
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Memphis Catholic school system honored for efforts in inner city
PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management honored the school system of the Diocese of Memphis, Tenn., June 26 for its efforts to make Catholic schools accessible to inner-city children. Memphis Bishop J. Terry Steib and Mary McDonald, superintendent of diocesan schools, accepted the organization's Best Practices Award for the school system's "excellence and visionary leadership in Catholic education" during a banquet in Philadelphia. Since 1999, the diocese has reopened eight inner-city elementary schools shut down over recent decades; revitalized two more inner-city elementary schools that were failing financially and in terms of enrollment; and put on a firm footing two inner-city high schools that were at risk of closing. One Memphis diocesan inner-city high school today resembles the Jesuits' Cristo Rey network of high schools for students from low-income families. Students attend class four days a week, working one day weekly in a local business to earn much of their tuition.
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Documentary narrated by Martin Sheen profiles work of N.J. priest
CAMDEN, N.J. (CNS) -- On the movie screen were two images of Msgr. Michael Doyle. The priest as he looks today, white-haired, was watching a younger version of himself on television, from 25 years ago, when "60 Minutes" did a segment on his work in Camden. In the "60 Minutes" piece the Irish-born priest's voice sounds just as it does today. His 1983 concerns -- about the neglect of the poor in the inner city, violence and misplaced priorities of a government that pours money into the military and allows children to grow up in crushing poverty -- reflect issues he still cares deeply about. Msgr. Doyle, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in south Camden, watched those two images of himself during the screening of a 55-minute documentary titled "Poet of Poverty." About 600 people also watched the June 14 screening at a Camden theater, the day before the 40th anniversary of Msgr. Doyle's arrival in Camden. The film is narrated by actor Martin Sheen and built around the letters that Msgr. Doyle sends each month to parishioners, friends and supporters.
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Catholic University hosts seminar on causes, impacts of hoarding
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- People's clutter can say a lot about their mental health, researchers said at a June 26 symposium on hoarding at The Catholic University of America in Washington. Among the attendees were social workers, mental health professionals and emergency medical technicians, sharing stories and solutions for helping compulsive hoarders. "It's easy to look at a hoarder's life and judge, but it's more helpful to come together and help," said Jennifer Berger, a lawyer with the AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly in Washington and one of the symposium panelists. According to the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation Web site, as many as 1.4 million people in the United States are compulsive hoarders. The condition, defined on the site by Smith College professor Randy Frost, is an obsessive need to acquire and save objects without discarding anything, accumulating so much that living spaces cannot be used for what they're intended and the clutter causes impairment or distress.
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WORLD
Pope appoints U.S. Archbishop Burke to head Vatican's highest court
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has appointed U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis to head the Vatican's highest court. The Wisconsin native replaces Italian Cardinal Agostino Vallini who was appointed by the pope to replace Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who is retiring as papal vicar for Rome. The pope made the announcements June 27, three days before the archbishop's 60th birthday. As prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, Archbishop Burke will hear appeals of decisions issued by lower church courts. A canon lawyer, the archbishop worked for the court during 1989-94 and was named a member of the body in July 2006. He also served on the Roman Rota, the church's central appeals court, before being named bishop of La Crosse, Wis., in 1994. He was installed as archbishop of St. Louis in 2004.
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Georgian Catholics cite 'growing hardship' from Orthodox pressure
WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- A Catholic priest in Georgia has warned of growing hostility toward the Catholic Church. "There's no problem going to church and taking part in services. The hardship starts when a Catholic wants to function normally in social life," said Father Maciej Mamaj, a Polish priest in Georgia's northern Meskhetia region. "Non-Orthodox pupils and students feel stressed and discriminated against, while those who work are often pressured to become Orthodox and told they must if they want jobs," he told Poland's Catholic information agency, KAI, June 23. "A climate of hostility to Catholicism reigns in society, where the local nationalism supposes every Georgian should be Orthodox." The priest said young Georgians routinely were warned not to befriend Catholics or enter Catholic churches. He also said anti-Catholic remarks were common on radio and television.
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Pope urges Hong Kong, Macau bishops to help church in mainland China
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Being a Catholic and being Chinese are not mutually exclusive, Pope Benedict XVI told bishops from Hong Kong and Macau. Pope Benedict urged the bishops from the two dioceses to continue to support the life of the church in mainland China where religious activities are restricted. Despite the lack of full religious freedom on the mainland, the pope said, "the church must never allow this good news (of Christ) to remain unspoken." He made his remarks during a June 27 audience with Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong, Coadjutor Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong and Bishop Jose Lai Hung-seng of Macau. The three bishops were at the Vatican for their "ad limina" visits, a series of consultative meetings with Vatican officials. Hong Kong and Macau are two special administrative regions of China and the majority of inhabitants there are ethnic Chinese.
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It's not Prada but Christ that guides vestment choices, says paper
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Wearing ornate liturgical vestments symbolizes the spiritual transformation of the person wearing the clothes, not his love of fashion, the Vatican newspaper said. "The priest does not choose such ornaments because of an aesthetic vice -- he does it to put on the new clothes of Christ," said an article in the June 26 edition of L'Osservatore Romano. Liturgical vestments represent "dressing oneself anew in Christ" in which the priest "transcends his identity to become someone else," to become one with Christ through a process of interior transformation and inner renewal, it said. "The pope, in short, does not wear Prada, but Christ," it said. The article was written by Spanish novelist Juan Manuel de Prada, who is not related to the Milanese Prada fashion company he mentions in the critique. It presents a harsh reproach against the way some media have "trivialized" Pope Benedict XVI's sartorial styles.
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Former government official criticizes Spanish church for 'arrogance'
MADRID, Spain (CNS) -- A former member of Spain's government criticized the Catholic Church in Spain during a speech delivered in Madrid, the latest in a string of back-and-forth verbal attacks between the church and its political detractors. Gregorio Peces-Barba, a veteran lawyer who served as president of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of Spain's legislature, in the early 1980s, called on the government to monitor what he called the church's "excessive pretensions" in a mid-June speech. Father Javier Palacio, pastor of St. Michael of Fuencarral, a neighborhood in Madrid, told Catholic News Service June 19 that Peces-Barba "sees his own arrogance in everyone else. But he is not alone in creating resentment against the church. It is the government that tarnishes the image of the church to promote their agenda," noted the priest, who said that as a Spanish priest he feels personally attacked by the remarks. "The church is trying to be a valid institution in a secular society," he added. "It does not interrupt political activity. It helps the faithful decide how to vote. It gives them guidelines but never aggressively."
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PEOPLE
Pope turns spotlight on St. Paul as model for modern Christians
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI is known to the world as the successor of St. Peter, the first pope. But for the next 12 months he'll be turning the spotlight on St. Paul, the church's archetypal missionary. The jubilee year marks the 2,000th anniversary (more or less) of the apostle's birth, and it fits nicely into what has become an important theme of Pope Benedict's pontificate: the Christian duty to evangelize. As the pope told the Roman Curia last December, the idea of all religions getting along harmoniously does not negate the task of leading others to Christ. "Whoever has recognized a great truth, who has found a great joy, should transmit it. He cannot in fact keep it to himself. Gifts so large are never destined for just one person," he said. The pope has pointed to St. Paul as a model of evangelizing energy. Known as the "Apostle of the Gentiles," he preached across a vast swath of Mediterranean lands and helped move the early church into the larger world.
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Catholics react to priest carrying Olympic torch in China
TAIYUAN, China (CNS) -- Chinese Catholics expressed mixed feelings about a priest carrying the Olympic torch along its relay route in the Shanxi provincial capital. Father Paul Meng Ningyou, vicar general of the Taiyuan Diocese and pastor of Immaculate Conception Cathedral, was the 122nd of 208 torchbearers when he ran June 26 in Taiyuan, an industrial city less than 250 miles southwest of Beijing, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. Some local Catholics who watched the live television broadcast of the relay told UCA News the TV anchor introduced Father Meng as a "religious personnel" of the Taiyuan Catholic cathedral who was elected a deputy of the Taiyuan People's Congress in 2007. Father Meng, 45, was the only religious worker to carry the torch in Taiyuan, and the only priest known to have done so since the relay began on the mainland May 4.
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Teen proposes national no-drive day on feast of St. Francis of Assisi
OAKLAND, Calif. (CNS) -- Thirteen-year-old Jennifer Sekar doesn't drive and she wants to make sure no one else does either, at least for one Saturday this year. The Fremont teenager hopes 1 million people will not drive Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, a strong advocate of caring for the earth. She said keeping that many drivers off the road for one day will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 tons. Jennifer's idea, called "A Day of Rest," got off the ground in May and is gaining momentum on the Web site www.adayofrest.org. On the site, Jennifer is collecting online pledges, not for money, but for a promise to not drive any powered vehicle Oct. 4 and to spend the day with family and friends. "You can always be without a car," Jennifer said, "but without family and friends, you can't really do much. 'A Day of Rest' would be a really good time to strengthen people's friendships and bonds with their families."
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Archbishop expresses sadness at leaving St. Louis for Vatican post
ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- With his June 27 appointment to head the Vatican's highest court, Archbishop Raymond L. Burke immediately ceased to be archbishop of St. Louis. "Although you will no longer pray for me as your archbishop, especially during the celebration of the holy Mass, I ask your prayers for me that I may faithfully and generously cooperate with God's grace in fulfilling my new responsibilities," the archbishop told St. Louis Catholics at a news conference several hours after his appointment was announced at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI named Archbishop Burke prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, succeeding Italian Cardinal Agostino Vallini. "Leaving the service of the church in the Archdiocese of St. Louis is most sad for me," Archbishop Burke said. "St. Louis is a great archdiocese which will always have a treasured place in my heart." He also expressed sadness at leaving "my fellow priests, whom I have so much grown to esteem and love."
END
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