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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Apr-7-2009
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Parishioners from eight dioceses seek mediation for parish closings
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Parishioners from 31 groups in eight U.S. dioceses have joined forces to ask the Vatican to suspend parish closings and to instruct bishops to negotiate the closures with local Catholics. In an 18-page letter delivered April 7 to several Vatican offices, the parish representatives said the decision to close hundreds of parishes across the country has left the U.S. Catholic Church at a "'tipping point' of permanent damage and irreversible decline." Peter Borre, co-chairman of the Boston-based Council of Parishes, formed in 2004 to oppose parish closings, said the effort is meant to offer a "third way" for the Catholic Church to respond to changing demographics, financial concerns and the declining number of priests nationwide. "We are asking the Secretariat of State to basically instruct U.S. bishops to suspend, not roll back, parish closings and to urge bishops in the eight dioceses we name to enter into mediation with parishioner groups," Borre told Catholic News Service from Rome April 7. In addition to parishioners in the Boston Archdiocese, other worshippers involved in the request are from the New York and New Orleans archdioceses and the dioceses of Allentown, Pa., Buffalo, N.Y., Cleveland, Scranton, Pa., and Springfield, Mass.
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Members of new advisory council urged to make groups' voices heard
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Obama administration told members of a new President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and other guests April 6 that it wants the government to aggressively encourage participation by faith-based and community organizations in advisory and hands-on capacities. At the opening session of a briefing that continued April 7, Joshua Dubois, director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, explained that the council and his office are still being organized, but that President Barack Obama's goal is to "bring into partnership" faith-based and community organizations in the United States and around the world. He noted that the predecessor Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, created by President George W. Bush, did great work, but that there was a sense that "certain faiths were not welcome" and that community groups that didn't have religious roots were not encouraged to participate. "We take the word 'community' very seriously and when we talk about faith-based, we mean interfaith," Dubois said. He was joined in presentations by White House staff members charged with policy on education and urban affairs. Also speaking were an associate director of the Office of Management and Budget and Candy Hill, senior vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities USA.
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Campus rally against Obama draws 400; letter-writing campaign launched
NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) -- Organizers of an April 5 campus protest against the University of Notre Dame's decision to have President Barack Obama as commencement speaker also launched a Red Envelope Campaign aimed at sending the president a message about abortion. Critics of Obama have said his support of legal abortion and embryonic stem-cell research make him an inappropriate choice to be commencement speaker at a Catholic university. The president also will receive an honorary degree. The protest rally, organized by a campus pro-life coalition called Notre Dame Response, drew a crowd of about 400, made up of students, faculty, families and pro-life supporters from near and far. Many in the crowd addressed empty red envelopes to be given to the Notre Dame president, Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins, to give to Obama. Each envelope read: "Father Jenkins, This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world. This envelope was going to be sent to President Obama on March 31. However, as he is scheduled to receive an honorary doctorate of laws degree from Notre Dame on May 17, we ask that you deliver it to him on our behalf at that time."
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WORLD
Pope offers condolences to victims of Italian earthquake
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Just hours after an earthquake hit the city and province of L'Aquila in central Italy, causing more than 200 deaths and major damage to churches and other buildings, Pope Benedict XVI offered his prayers for the dead, their loved ones and rescue workers. The quake struck April 6 at 3:30 a.m. local time and was felt strongly even in Rome, about 70 miles west of L'Aquila. Among the victims was Abbess Gemma Antonucci, head of the Poor Clares' Convent of St. Clare in Paganica, outside L'Aquila. In an interview with SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops' conference, Father Dionisio Rodriguez Cuartas, the pastor in Paganica and director of Caritas L'Aquila, said the roof of the Poor Clares' convent caved in. In the early afternoon, rescue workers were able to recover the body of the abbess and to free another nun from the debris. Two of the dozen members of the community were hospitalized with broken bones; the others were unharmed. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said April 7 that 207 people were confirmed dead and 15 people were still missing and feared dead. The government also estimated that 17,000 people were left homeless.
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Catholic bishops in southern Africa urge leaders to shun corruption
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Southern Africa's Catholic bishops said the dropping of graft charges against African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma denies him the chance to clear his name in court, and they called on those in positions of responsibility to shun all forms of corruption. South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority said April 6 that an investigation of fraud, racketeering, embezzlement and money laundering against Zuma was being dropped due to abuses of the legal process by top officials. The charges against Zuma stem from a scandal over South Africa's $5 billion arms deal in 1999. Zuma is widely expected to become South Africa's president after April 22 general elections. The "decision not to proceed with the prosecution ... has denied both Mr. Zuma and the country the chance to establish his innocence or guilt once and for all through the normal process of a court of law," Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, spokesman for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, said in an April 6 statement.
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Bishop, charitable group inaugurate fish farm to feed Caribbean poor
NAGUA, Dominican Republic (CNS) -- Watching a Catholic bishop, a Taiwanese ambassador and leaders of an American philanthropic organization release fish into a pond was an exciting moment for 14-year-old Yaritza Ramirez. Clad in the pale blue shirt and skirt that made up the teenager's school uniform, Yaritza, a resident of Nagua, clapped with great enthusiasm along with her fellow classmates as the tilapia and carp were released into one of the many ponds inaugurated in her village April 2. "This is going to help us a lot," she told Catholic News Service through an interpreter. "It's going to bring us food that is good for us, and it will bring us industry that will help us have a better life." About 200 people who live in the northern Dominican village attended the inauguration of the fish-farming ponds. Florida-based Food for the Poor, an international relief and development organization, worked with Bishop Julio Corniel Amaro of Puerto Plata to oversee the $372,000 Rio Baqui Tilapia Farm project. It includes 29 ponds, 10 new houses, a new school and a community center. Taiwan's International Cooperation and Development Fund is teaching the local residents how to run the operation.
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Franciscans ready to celebrate 800th anniversary of order's founding
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Some 1,800 Franciscan friars from all over the world were expected to converge on the Umbrian hill town of Assisi, Italy, to celebrate the 800th anniversary of papal approval of the Franciscan rule. For the first time, representatives from the four main Franciscan branches were to meet in Assisi -- the birthplace of their founder, St. Francis -- to take part in an International Chapter of Mats April 15-18. A Chapter of Mats gets its name from the time in 1221 St. Francis called more than 3,000 friars to the Portiuncula chapel in Assisi for a general meeting or chapter. Because the small town could not accommodate the large number of visitors, the friars lived in huts made out of reeds and slept on mats, said Father Jose Rodriguez Carballo, minister general of the Order of Friars Minor. The three other Franciscan groups participating are the Capuchins, the Conventual Franciscans and the Third Order Regular Franciscans. The chapter falls on the 800th anniversary of the formal founding of the Franciscan order when St. Francis presented his rule to Pope Innocent III for approval in 1209.
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PEOPLE
Pope names two auxiliary bishops for Quebec
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has named two new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Quebec: Father Paul Lortie, 65, and Father Gerald Cyprien Lacroix, 51, superior general of the Quebec-based Pius X Secular Institute. The appointment of the new auxiliaries to assist Cardinal Marc Ouellet was announced April 7 at the Vatican. Bishop-designate Lortie, born in Beauport, Quebec, holds a degree in theology from the University of Laval in Quebec City and studied education and catechesis in Paris and at Laval. Ordained to the priesthood in 1970, he served as archdiocesan director of education, 1976-1983, then worked for six years as the assistant general secretary for education of the Quebec bishops' assembly. Bishop-designate Lacroix was born in Saint-Hilaire de Dorset, Quebec, but went to high school and university in Manchester, N.H., studying at Trinity High School and St. Anselm College. He did his studies in preparation for the priesthood at Laval University, earning a master's degree in pastoral theology. He entered the Pius X Secular Institute in 1975 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1988.
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Man arrested for murder of Texas priest in Mexico
AUSTIN, Texas (CNS) -- Mexican police April 6 arrested a man in the murder of an Austin Catholic priest whose body was found a day earlier along a highway in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Father Jesse Euresti, 69, pastor of Cristo Rey Parish in Austin, had been the subject of a six-day search when he disappeared after heading to a home in Nuevo Laredo that he intended to use in retirement. The Austin American-Statesman daily newspaper said a family friend who went to look for him several days after he was last seen found the home ransacked and stained with blood. The Associated Press said Manuel Martin Torres Saldana was arrested after he called Father Euresti's family demanding money in exchange for information about where to find the priest's body. The Austin newspaper said Torres Saldana had known Father Euresti for years and took care of the Nuevo Laredo house in the priest's absence. The Diocese of Austin said the priest intended to retire to Nuevo Laredo in July. A funeral for Father Euresti was scheduled for April 8 at Cristo Rey, the parish of his childhood, to which he returned as pastor in 2006.
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