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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Nov-20-2008
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Southern California fires leave thousands homeless in four counties
LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- Catholic communities in four Southern California counties rushed to the assistance of dozens of parish families who were left without their homes by a week of wind-driven brush fires that began Nov. 13. Three wildfires scorched 42,000 acres and destroyed nearly 1,000 residences in Southern California. At least two of the three fires were contained by Nov. 19, and that same day local officials said the third fire, in Los Angeles County, was close to being contained. News reports said that one of the fires might have been started accidentally by some college students. Twenty people, including firefighters, were injured. One fatality was reported; a 98-year-old man died during the evacuation process near downtown Santa Barbara. The largest concentration of destruction took place north of Los Angeles in Sylmar's Oak Ridge Mobile Home Park, where 484 homes out of 600 in the park were lost to the fire. Those included 39 homes of parishioners of St. Didacus Church and the home of Barbara Barreda, principal of St. Elizabeth School in Van Nuys. Another parishioner's home was severely damaged, and many parishioners were evacuated to nearby shelters.
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Same-sex marriage not a matter of human rights, says Maine bishop
PORTLAND, Maine (CNS) -- Allowing same-sex couples to marry would strip marriage of its essential component -- the creation of new life -- and render it meaningless and "open it up to endless revision and redefinition," Bishop Richard J. Malone of Portland said in a letter to Catholics in the statewide diocese. The bishop defended traditional marriage, writing that he believes opposing its redefinition is a matter of faith, reason and a concern for the good of society. "To claim that marriage is a civil right open to all forms of relationships is a misnomer," he said in the mid-November letter drafted after several Christian ministers at a news conference days earlier called for the state to legalize same-sex marriage. "Marriage is an institution that predates civilization, ordained by God, and exclusive to one man and one woman who are given the responsibility to procreate the human race and to nurture, educate and pass on shared values and mores to their offspring," Bishop Malone wrote.
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Ads on public buses promote vocations to priesthood, religious life
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (CNS) -- Some future priests of the Diocese of Springfield might, on their ordination day, say they were inspired by a bus. As part of its ongoing marketing initiatives, the diocese's Office of Vocations has begun placing advertisements on the backs and sides of area buses. "We hope that it will generate some interest" and get people talking about vocations, said Father Gary M. Dailey, vocations director. "It is all part of the culture of vocations that we are trying to create throughout the Diocese of Springfield. "So I thought buses would be fun and a good way to just try and get the message out," he told The Catholic Observer, Springfield's diocesan paper. Both ads feature a priest's Roman collar and a message. The ads on the back of buses state "Come Follow Me." Those on the side read "If you're waiting for a sign from God, this is it."
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'Don't water it down,' says young Catholic about passing on the faith
LINTHICUM, Md. (CNS) -- Megan Nappi didn't mince words as she sat in a circle with young adults from Baltimore and Washington, surrounded by some of the nation's leading adolescent catechesis experts during the four-day National Symposium on Adolescent Catechesis. Asked what advice she would give on teen faith formation, the University of Maryland student and member of Our Lady of the Fields Parish in Millersville told the 100 attendees there: "Don't water it down." The response drew audible gasps, and even applause, from the gathering of academics, educators, youth ministers, bishops, catechists and other leaders. The symposium, held Nov. 5-8 at the Maritime Institute and Conference Center in Linthicum, was a project of three national Catholic youth formation groups brought together in one organization called the Partnership for Adolescent Catechesis.
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Le Moyne College doubles endowment with $50 million donation
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (CNS) -- In what its president called "one of the most significant events in our history," Le Moyne College in Syracuse has received a $50 million gift from the estate of Robert and Catherine McDevitt. The McDevitt Endowment, which will more than double Le Moyne's current endowment, will be dedicated to the academic areas of computer science, information processing, physics and religious philosophy. Fred P. Pestello, Le Moyne president, said the new endowment, announced Nov. 19, "will enhance our standing in the national academic community, continue our momentum toward becoming one of the finest institutions of our kind in the country and ensure that Le Moyne remains an excellent value." Robert McDevitt, owner of McDevitt Brothers Funeral Home in Binghamton, died Sept. 22, less than six months after the death of his wife, Catherine. Robert McDevitt's mother was secretary to A. Ward Ford, founding president of IBM; the majority of the gift will be in IBM stock. Both McDevitts were longtime friends of Le Moyne and supporters of Jesuit education.
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WORLD
Monasticism reminds Catholics of what is essential, pope says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In their silence, their prayer and their work, monks and nuns remind other Catholics that the central focus of Christian life must be to seek Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said. Monastic life is "a reminder of that which is essential and has primacy in the life of all the baptized: to seek Christ and place nothing before his love," the pope said during a meeting Nov. 20 with members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The congregation was holding its plenary meeting Nov. 18-20, focusing specifically on "monastic life and its significance in the church and the world today." While the drastic drop in the number of monks and nuns in Europe and North America was one of the principal concerns of the plenary meeting, Pope Benedict did not speak about the declining numbers and the threat that poses to the continued existence of many monasteries, especially in Europe. Instead, the pope focused on the value of monasticism for the church as a whole.
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Public health crisis in Zimbabwe puts more than a million at risk
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- As world health professionals urged an international response to a public health crisis in Zimbabwe, where state hospitals are barely functioning and more than a million people are at risk, a Jesuit priest working in the country told of the effects on ordinary citizens. "Unless the United Nations and individual governments provide a robust and immediate response, massive loss of life will occur," the international advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights said in a Nov. 19 statement. It spoke of "the convergence of hospital closings, disruption of water and electricity, a major cholera epidemic spreading throughout the country, a breakdown in delivery of medications for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and chronic illness, and government obstruction of food and critical aid to millions." Doctors Without Borders, which has set up cholera treatment centers in Harare, warned Nov. 18 that up to 1.4 million people are in danger if the disease continues to spread.
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Philippine official calls decentralization key to peace in Mindanao
JOLO, Philippines (CNS) -- Decentralizing power is essential to peace in Mindanao, the region in the southern Philippines where Muslims seek autonomy, said a member of the commission that reviewed the Philippine Constitution. "Self-determination is the call of the people," said Rey Magno Teves at the Nov. 19 session of the assembly of the Bishops-Ulama Conference. The Asian church news agency UCA News reported on the assembly. About 95 participants -- Catholic and Protestant bishops, priests, pastors, laypeople, ulama (Islamic scholars) and Muslim professionals attended the Nov. 18-21 assembly in Jolo. Teves, who served on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's commission to revise the 1987 constitution, chaired the committee that studied the structure of the Philippine government. He said that in 22 dialogues his committee had conducted around the country since 2005 participants in 18 sessions agreed the country needed to alter its current form of government. Decentralized government is "the only hope" for the future of Mindanao, where the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been fighting for self-rule since the 1970s.
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PEOPLE
Catholic survivor of Great Depression has not lost hope in economy
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- Although Mary Barnes did not know much about the 1929 stock market crash that occurred when she was 5, she knew something was awry in the world. Barnes, born Mary Oster, and her seven siblings, were shielded from the family's budget woes by their parents. But on the family farm in South Dakota, dust smothered the crops, and one year when plants actually grew the air was thick with grasshoppers. She also remembers many hungry-looking men and women wandering past the farm looking for work. Now 85, Barnes lives in decidedly undusty Portland, where she raised four children of her own. When she recommends the need to be thrifty, her brood teases her for having "a Depression mentality." "I think we're more cautious and we're more frugal," Barnes said of her generation. "Also, we are more appreciative of the things we have. We used it up, wore it out and made do." Her health is excellent; she suffers a few aches and pains and a little blood pressure irregularity. Most days, she walks 18 blocks to St. Ignatius Church in Portland for daily Mass.
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Priest criticizes arrest of priests, nun in 16-year-old murder case
COCHIN, India (CNS) -- A Catholic spokesman criticized the arrest of two priests and a nun in connection with the murder of a nun in India more than 16 years ago. The arrests are an attempt to "save the skin" of the federal investigating agency, said Father Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the Kerala-based Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern rite. The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Fathers Thomas Kottoor, 61, and Jose Poothrukayil, 56, Nov. 18 and St. Joseph Sister Sephy, 45, a day later. All three live in the Kottayam Archdiocese. Also Nov. 19 a lower court in Cochin remanded the three to judicial custody for 14 days, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News. According to media reports, police accused one of the priests of bludgeoning St. Joseph Sister Abhaya and all three of dumping her body in a convent well in Kottayam March 27, 1992. Sister Abhaya, 21, resided at the women's hostel in St. Pius X Convent in Kottayam, where Sister Sephy worked as a hostel warden. Kottayam, a Christian area, is about 35 miles south of Cochin.
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