This week, The Catholic New World features its last Faith & Education of the school year, along with a salute to Catholic high school valedictorians.

Cardinal's Column

News:

Soldier Field sanctuary combines sacred, dramatic

Think sheer curtains.
The back of the sanctuary for the Soldier Field Mass on June 24 will be draped with 13 panels of translucent white fabric. Thirteen more panels will be draped across the ceiling, extending toward the congregation like “the arms of Christ,” said architect Brian Meade. Full text available.

Panelists discuss vouchers

House Majority Leader Dick Armey kicked off a discussion about school vouchers on Capitol Hill May 19 by getting choked up about the issue.
He held back tears when he spoke of the hardships faced by many students in failing inner-city public schools. “Every child deserves a safe refuge,” he said.

Making money, keeping God’s laws

Del Smith left a Catholic orphanage in Seattle with adoptive parents when he was 26 months old, and by the time he was 10 years old he already had taken out his first business loan.
He piloted fighters in the Air Force, and went on in 1960 to build Evergreen International Aviation, the world’s largest privately owned air cargo business. He started with two helicopters.
The 70-year-old Catholic entrepreneur says he is successful because he tried to follow the Ten Commandments and to live his life by the credo that “you do what’s right.’’

Pope celebrates birthday with jubilee for priests

“Over the years, it has been a private celebration. He wasn’t able to get away with that this year,” said Father Jeremiah Boland.
Boland, executive director of the Chicago archdiocesan Priest Placement Board, was one of an estimated 8,000 priests who concelebrated a birthday Mass May 18 with Pope John Paul II.
Reaching the milestone of age 80, the pontiff used his birthday, along with the Vatican’s Jubilee for Priests, as an opportunity to emphasize the primacy of his priestly vocation in his life.

Features:

College life: Finding God on campus

The end of one school year usually means a summer of relaxation. For high school graduates, however, it means something else entirely: getting ready for college.
Students new to the college scene face multiple challenges. One is academic. Another may be the process of moving from parents' religious beliefs to their own personal faith, particularly if they are coming from families with strong Catholic traditions and are entering a four-year state college.
Helping them make that transition is campus ministry. Full text available.

Vacation Bible School

Summer now brings vacation Bible school to many Catholic children. These programs--once thought to be the domain of only Protestant churches--are becoming more popular at local parishes. The idea is not new. Full text available.

The Interview:

In defense of Pius XII: one historian’s perspective

This week, Catholic New World staff writer Dolores Madlener talks with Martin Doorhy.
Innocent until proven guilty works for football players and presidents, not popes. Calumnies against Pope Pius XII have circulated since shortly after his death in 1958. Today it is a book by John Cornwell of Great Britain that got national attention on “60 Minutes” this spring.
Martin Doorhy, ironically a defense attorney in private practice in the Chicago area, is one of the scholar-historians who has seen through its falsehoods. Full text available.

Commentary:

Strange logic

News item: “... emphasizing that people can avoid offensive speech simply by averting their eyes—or getting blocking devices for their televisions, the Supreme Court struck down part of a 1996 law designed to protect children from indecent cable programming.”
Under these guidelines, portrayals of naked women, highlighting their genitalia, or writhing in delight at being teased while simulating pro-creation, is merely “indecent,” while portraying the Ten Commandments or pausing for silent prayer in public is obscene, and must be banned.
Strange logic. One nation “under God?” Bah!
Deacon Jack Kearney, Chicago

Parish Pride:
St. James Church
134 North Ave., Highwood

This may be the only parish in the archdiocese that celebrated its first Masses in a fort—Fort Sheridan. In the early 1900s, soldiers at the army post on the site of the old town of St. James, worshiped with parishioners. First settled by Irish and Swedes, eventually Italians moved up North when mines closed in Southern Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. As its 75th anniversary approaches, St. James still welcomes fresh immigrants to its cultural mix. People continue to make this parish “a great success story.”

Church Clips:

Comeback trail — According to a semi-reliable source, the gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot the Pope, is hoping for an early release from prison. If freed, Agca says, he will go to Fatima for 10 days of prayerful reflection.

BACK