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News Briefs
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NEWS BRIEFS Sep-20-2012
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Bishop talks about Catholicism to crowd of Latter-day Saints students
OREM, Utah (CNS) -- More than 1,000 students at the Orem Institute of Religion at Utah Valley University packed a lecture hall Sept. 18 to hear Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City speak about the Catholic faith. Bishop Wester's visit was at the behest of the university's LDS Student Association Interfaith Committee, which was formed this year. "One of the purposes of the Interfaith Committee is to form those bridges between religions and let the students come and learn more about those religions because there is a lot of ignorance when it comes to other faiths," said Spencer Bennett, co-chairman. "This is a way that we can come together and to ask questions that we've had and to learn about them." In addition to students and faculty members, the event was attended by dignitaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the First Quorum of Seventy and Elder Steven J. Lund, a regional LDS leader. Bishop Wester opened his remarks by saying that the gathering of students and Elder Clayton's presence "are wonderful signs of our ongoing collaboration and friendship and mutual desire to stand shoulder to shoulder as we give witness to Jesus Christ as his disciples." This hasn't always been so, Bishop Wester said, pointing out that religious conflicts are ongoing in many parts of today's world, so interfaith gatherings are important. "I believe that what we're doing today is to help us be open to the different ways in which God acts in our lives in our different religions, and to see the ways that we can work together," he said.
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Diocese of Jackson celebrates 175th anniversary with Mass, music
JACKSON, Miss. (CNS) -- Seventeen bishops, dozens of priests and a congregation of about 1,000 people gathered Sept. 16 at Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson. The celebration included a musical prelude, Mass and a reception designed to embrace all of the cultural influences that give the diocese its unique character. Before the celebration, people could take a look at exhibits on each of the bishops of the past prepared by students in Catholic schools in the diocese. The exhibits included mosaics, banners and even a Lego display. Students who worked on the projects were invited to carry in banners bearing the images of the bishops they studied. Many lay groups within the diocese also marched in the procession including the Knights and Ladies of Peter Claver, the Knights of Columbus, and the Knights and Ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. Priests and seminarians from all over the diocese then followed. Bishops from surrounding dioceses processed onto the stage to call the congregation to prayer. Visiting prelates included Archbishops Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile, Ala., and Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans and retired Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora. More than a dozen bishops also attended, including Bishop David R. Choby of Nashville, Tenn., whose diocese is also celebrating its 175th anniversary. The original diocese, founded July 28, 1837, encompassed the entire state of Mississippi, with Natchez as the first cathedral city. The first bishop, John Joseph Chanche, a Sulpician, came from Baltimore to serve the fledging flock in 1841.
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NLRB orders ballots counted in Duquesne representation election
PITTSBURGH (CNS) -- The National Labor Relations Board ordered that ballots be counted in a representation election of adjunct faculty members at Spiritan-run Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The order was delivered Sept. 14 by the NLRB in Washington. No date was set to have the ballots opened. The 2-to-1 ruling by the NLRB instructed the board's regional director in Pittsburgh to open and count the ballots, and to let each side know the results. Duquesne had argued against opening the ballots on jurisdictional grounds, asserting a First Amendment right to religious exemption from NLRB jurisdiction in the matter and citing a 1979 Supreme Court ruling in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago. In the Chicago case, the high court said that religious institutions are not required to recognize unions of employees whose work is deemed a part of the church's mission. The decision exempted Catholic parochial schools from NLRB oversight. Regarding Duquesne, the NLRB rejected the university's argument for an exemption, but acknowledged the jurisdictional dispute may need to be revisited if the union, the United Steelworkers of America, gained a majority of the votes. If more adjunct faculty voted against the union, the jurisdictional issue would be moot. About 100 adjunct faculty from the university's McAnulty College and its graduate school of liberal arts organized into the Adjuncts Association. "We are not unmindful of the teachings of the Catholic Church on labor," Duquesne president Charles Dougherty said in a June 22 letter on the issue. "The church continues to support the right of working men and women to organize. Our history of positive relations with our existing unions is evidence of our appreciation of this fact. Nevertheless, we believe that, in the case of faculty who are central to the core of who and what we are, concerns for our religious mission are a higher priority."
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Palliative care fits Catholic health mission, but too few aware of it
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The National Palliative Care Research Center estimates that 90 million Americans are living with serious or life-threatening illnesses and the number is expected to double over the next 25 years. People nearing the end of life and their families often are confused about the options available to them in terms of pain control and about whether they have an obligation to use all of the life-prolonging technology available to them. These discussions are particularly lively among Catholics and in the West Coast states where physician-assisted suicide is a legal option. In Washington, the latest state to legalize assisted suicide, Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane offers an alternative way of dying. It provides "comfort care suites" that allow family members to stay with their dying relative in a homelike environment. Music thanatologists specially trained to soothe the seriously ill with their voices or the playing of harps are on staff. Health care professionals participate in education programs on palliative medicine and the ethical, moral and legal issues involved in end-of-life care. A meditation garden outside the hospital is open 24 hours a day and gives family members and patients who are well enough an opportunity to experience a peaceful area of waterfalls, streams and walking paths. At TrinityKids Care, a pediatric hospice program in Torrance, Calif., teams made up of a pediatrician, a registered nurse, a clinical social worker, a chaplain, a home health aide and specially trained volunteers help dying children and their families make the most of their last days, whether at home or in a hospital or nursing home setting. Anything from household chores to looking after siblings can be part of the hospice program, and the team also offers family counseling and grief and bereavement services when needed. These kinds of programs are duplicated throughout the country, but too few people know about them when the time comes for them to use them. "Most palliative care patients come in late," said Dr. Scott Miller, team physician at the Center for Compassionate Care in Pittsburgh.
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Different paths bring doctors, patients to palliative care, hospice
PITTSBURGH (CNS) -- Dr. Scott Miller remembers when he first decided to specialize in palliative care and hospice more than 20 years ago. He was an intern and saw the disdain with which some attending physicians treated patients who could no longer benefit from the sophisticated medical technology that hospitals could offer. "'That's an intern case,' they'd say. But we interns knew nothing," Miller said. "The patients deserved better. It was an emphasis on technology over compassion, and it cemented in my mind that we were doing this backward." For Dr. Myles Zuckerman, an interest in palliative care and hospice arose from watching his patients age and develop chronic or life-threatening diseases during his 27 years of private practice as a family physician. "I saw that they needed extra support, and I started working part time" as a hospice physician, he said. Six years ago he gave up his private practice, and "I haven't looked back for a moment. I love that I am a part of this." Miller and Zuckerman both work now for Family Hospice and Palliative Care in Pittsburgh. Miller is team physician for the 12-bed inpatient Center for Compassionate Care in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon, while also providing medical care on an interim basis at a new 14-bed facility on the city's East Side. Zuckerman is chief medical officer, overseeing both inpatient and outpatient medical care. More than 80 percent of the 440 patients served last year received care only in their own homes, while 18.6 percent were admitted to the center at some point during the year. But Family Hospice and Palliative Care -- founded in 1980 by St. Clair Hospital, South Hills Interfaith Ministries, Mercy Hospital and South Hills Health System -- offers much more than medical care.
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WORLD
Vatican synod to examine when divided Christians can preach together
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The potential power, but also the limits, of an ecumenical proclamation of the Gospel and defense of Gospel values is likely to be a key topic during October's world Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization. The ecumenical focus will be particularly sharp Oct. 10 when -- at the personal invitation of Pope Benedict XVI -- Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury will deliver a major address to synod members. While popes have long invited other Christians to be "fraternal delegates" and make brief speeches at the synods, Pope Benedict has begun a tradition of inviting important religious leaders to deliver a major address. In 2008, Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Chief Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen of Haifa, Israel, addressed the Synod of Bishops on the Bible. Another rabbi and two Muslim leaders gave speeches at the 2010 special synod on the Middle East. Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the invitations demonstrate the pope's recognition that the "challenges facing religious belief itself and church life are common -- no church, no religion is an island -- and we need one another and can learn from one another." In addition, he said, ecumenical and interreligious cooperation shows the world that "we are together in promoting the values of belief and the moral-ethical values that we stand by." Ecumenical cooperation is crucial when trying to transmit the faith in the modern world and to re-propose Christianity in areas, especially Europe and North America, which had a Christian tradition, but are becoming increasingly secularized.
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Pope's bees brave summer heat to produce organic wildflower honey
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The pope's bees had a bittersweet year producing a lower-than-expected yield due to intense summer heat. The bees live on a 50-acre farm at the papal summer villa in Castel Gandolfo, a small town in the hills southeast of Rome. Despite their hard work, the one-half million bees only managed to pull in 176 pounds of wildflower honey -- produced from nectar from surrounding gardens, fruit trees and other blossoming trees like chestnut. Temperatures and rainfall can affect both nectar production and restrict honeybees from foraging. The honey crop was produced by eight beehives, which were donated to Pope Benedict XVI last year by members of Coldiretti, an Italian trade group that promotes agricultural education and lobbies to protect agricultural land and promote farm-friendly policies. Italian farmers belonging to the organization also gave the pope his own vineyard of native red and white grape varieties, Coldiretti said in a press release Sept. 20. The donation was part of the group's "locavore" initiative to help produce a papal wine while producing zero carbon emissions next year. The group planted 1,200 square yards of grape vines this year "in a striking corner" of the papal gardens "under a statue of Christ giving his blessing," it said. They also donated the necessary equipment for processing the grapes and new oak and chestnut casks for the wine to age properly in the small papal wine cellar. The vineyard was given to Pope Benedict as a way of commemorating his first words to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square on the day of his election April 19, 2005, when he called himself "a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord."
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Bishops must courageously proclaim the Gospel, pope says
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Bishops today must be courageous in proclaiming the Gospel, encouraging others to grow in faith and working to ensure the unity of the church based on adherence to its teaching, Pope Benedict XVI said. The pope met Sept. 20 with 95 new bishops attending a seminar in Rome on their new roles and responsibilities. The group included 17 bishops from the United States and eight from Canada; most of them had been ordained in the past year. Pope Benedict told them that as members of the College of Bishops, "you always must have a special concern for the universal church, in the first place by promoting and defending the unity of the faith." Beginning their ministry as bishops close to the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the opening of the Year of Faith Oct. 11, the new bishops must focus on being "teachers and heralds" of the Gospel and of the Catholic faith, the pope said. "Your priority concern is that of promoting and sustaining a stronger ecclesial commitment to new evangelization in order to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating the faith," the pope said. Pope Benedict told the bishops that their call to lead was not a call for them to try to do everything themselves or find a few close associates to help. "Evangelization is not a work for a few specialists, but for the whole people of God under the guidance of pastors," he said.
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Marking Jewish holy days, pope urges joint sharing of faith values
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI expressed hope that Christians and Jews would bear witness to the whole world of the values that stem from adoring one God. In a telegram to Chief Rabbi Riccardo di Segni of Rome to mark the Jewish high holy days, the pope sent his greetings to members of Rome's Jewish community. Pope Benedict offered his "heartfelt best wishes" for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, in the telegram released to reporters by the Vatican Sept. 20. "I hope that Jews and Christians, growing in respect and mutual friendship, may bear witness to the world of the values that spring from the adoration of the one God," the pope said in the telegram. With the Sept. 16 celebration of Rosh Hashana, Jews marked the beginning of the Jewish year 5773. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is celebrated 10 days later. The days in between are called the "days of awe" and are when Jews face up to their mistakes, make amends, resolve to live better in the coming year, and ask forgiveness from others and God.
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A Vatican Latin expert finds new uses for an ancient language
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Msgr. Daniel B. Gallagher was a microbiology major at the University of Michigan, his growing curiosity about the "deep questions" led the pre-med student to take philosophy and other humanities courses on the side. By the time he graduated, he had discerned his vocation to the priesthood. He had also discovered the appeal of Latin. "I had this thirst both for the language and what it conveyed, meaning the whole tradition of the West," he said. Today, at age 42, Msgr. Gallagher is able to follow both of his callings as the only American on a seven-man team in the Vatican's Office of Latin Letters, which translates the most important Vatican documents into the church's official language. Among other challenges, his job entails concocting Latin words for modern inventions, such as "discus rigidus" for "hard drive" or "aerinavis celerrima" for "jet." Some would argue that such efforts, however charming the results, are a pointless exercise in anachronism for a church with 1.2 billion members in practically every country on earth. Why not just replace the ancient tongue with the 21st century's international language, English? To do so, Msgr. Gallagher answers, would be to "sever us from everything that's preceded us." When Catholics pray in Latin, he said, "we put ourselves in a whole family of tradition," experiencing some of the same feelings as our ancestors in faith when they sang or recited the same words. Making a modern language the lingua franca of the church would also undermine the unity of Catholics today, he argues, by privileging one part of the universal church over others. Latin is "everybody's language and nobody's language," Msgr. Gallagher said. "No single race or ethnicity possesses" it.
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PEOPLE
Kenyan church leaders urge government to fix problems before election
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) -- Leaders of Kenya's mainstream Christian churches urged the government to address the many problems the country faces as it prepares for March general elections. A joint statement issued Sept. 20 cited the recent ethnic violence that left more than 100 Kenyans dead and displaced thousands of people in the Tana River Delta at a time when the government had vowed to enhance security and restore peace. The government belatedly deployed security personnel, but the church leaders recommended the government find the root cause of the violence. Some observers have accused politicians of exploiting ethnic rivalries before the election, and one government minister has been fired after being accused of inciting violence -- a charge he denied. The church leaders also raised concern over ongoing strikes by teachers and doctors. Kenyan teachers have been on strike throughout September, demanding higher wages. "We are deeply concerned that children and students have had to stay at home when they are supposed to be in school," the statement said, pointing out that national exams are a month away. "Thus, a lot of anxiety has been created to both parents and the students," the statement said. With the doctors on strike, the patients suffer the consequences, while dialogue fails to take place, they said.
END
Copyright (c) 2012 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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