Updates

Emergency pill bill pro-abortion

Although the stated purpose of a bill in Congress is to assure emergency contraception for sexual assault victims, its real aim seems to be to “pursue the narrow agenda of the pro-abortion lobby,” said the president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association.

Father Michael D. Place said in a March 21 statement that the agenda is focused on “eroding the protection of human life by defining life as beginning only with implantation and infringing on the religious freedom of Catholic health care and others of good will who wish to care for women and others in accord with their beliefs or deeply held values.”

The measure would require all hospitals to dispense emergency contraception to survivors of rape and incest.



Arson caused church fire

They lost their 44-year-old Catholic church in an early morning blaze March 18, but parishioners and staff members at St. Michael Church in suburban Wheaton were grateful that neither church personnel nor firefighters were injured.

An arrest has been made following an arson investigation.

Wheaton Fire Department Lt. Bill Hottendorf said the team that first responded to the fire recognized shortly after it arrived that the church already had sustained substantial damage inside and that halting the spread of flames to surrounding buildings was crucial.

News

Pope challenges abusive clergy

As news reports nationwide revealed an increasing number of accusations of clerical sexual misconduct, church leaders from Pope John Paul II on down addressed the growing scandal.

In Chicago, archdiocesan officials were reviewing allegations of sexual misconduct that have surfaced since recent reports in Boston and elsewhere have focused new attention on the issue.



Closing: like ‘losing a family’

When Beulah Reed attends the closing Mass for Assumption BVM/St. Catherine of Genoa Parish April 7, she will be leaving a church that has been a second home for 30 years.

When Betty Taylor leaves, she will say goodbye to the church that accepted her and her fellow parishioners when Assumption merged with St. Catherine 12 years ago. The consolidated parish uses St. Catherine’s buildings at 640 W. 118th St.



Women in Austria, Germany maintain ordination pending

A group of women in Germany and Austria say a Catholic bishop will ordain them within a year.

The group, whose members said they have been studying for the priesthood for three years, said two bishops are willing to carry out the ordination, however they would not name the bishops.

Rudolf Hammerschmidt, a spokesman for the German bishops’ conference, said the ordinations would be invalid and such an act “doesn’t involve us at all.”

Teens tour worship services
Visits teach understanding, appreciation of faiths

The five teens who gathered on a Friday night at St. Theresa in Palatine had lots of things on their minds: fights with friends, debate competitions, teachers, classes, who forgot and ate meat that day.

But when they walked into Congregation Beth Am in Buffalo Grove, a Reform Jewish Synagogue, they turned attentive eyes and ears all around them.

Lecture finds commonality among Jews, Christians

To Robert Chazan, European Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages shared more than they knew.

The majority Christians and minority Jews may have defined themselves in opposition to one another, but they worked off a common cultural heritage and set of assumptions, Chazan argued in the seventh annual Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Jerusalem Lecture in the Bernardin Center at Holy Name Cathedral March 14.

Holy Cross student trains to be future Olympian
Freshman hopes to travel the globe playing soccer

Marco Sullo has been skipping school a lot these days, but his family and teachers “are fine with it,” says the Holy Cross High School freshman.

After all, the Olympic hopeful manages to get all his class work done (especially math and algebra, his favorite subjects) between the soccer tournaments that have taken him across the country and beyond.



Wartime experiences led woman to church

Gisela Lehovec’s mother was raised Catholic and her father was an atheist. They called themselves “free thinkers” and did not instill any religion in their children.

But looking back over her life, Lehovec, 77, said she “was born to be a Christian even though my parents didn’t want this.” Her parents, she said, “had values, but what was missing was a moral backbone.”

Family of faith

An entire family of Laotian Buddhists will be baptized into the Catholic Church this year at the Easter Vigil Mass at St Theresa Parish in the Little Rock Diocese.

Alex Tanthaphongxay and brother Keo came to America 18 and 20 years ago, respectively, following the Vietnam War. As communism swept through Laos, many of their fellow countrymen similarly fled.

Both men returned to Laos years later, met their wives and brought them back to the United States.

Divine Mercy services slated

Divine Mercy services are scheduled in many parishes of the archdiocese April 7 as the devotion inspired by a simple Polish nun continues to grow.

Sister Faustina Kowalska, who recorded revelations she received in the 1930s about God’s mercy for sinners, was canonized April 30, 2000, and the second Sunday of Easter was declared the feast of Divine Mercy.

Bush aide says Mother Teresa changed his life

Jim Towey, newly appointed director of President Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, does not want to get so caught up in his work that he forgets why he is there in the first place.

That’s why he starts his day by attending Mass at 6:30 a.m., before heading to his office across the street from the White House.

Bishops’ efforts to fight sex abuse not well known

Mark Chopko said he gets the same question about clergy sex abuse of minors over and over-in phone calls, in e-mails and from people who simply stop him on the street because they recognize him from television-”Why haven’t the bishops done anything?”

Chopko, who has worked with bishops on the issue for 20 years as general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said there is a whole library of resources, expert reports and information built up in the bishops’ efforts to deal with clergy sex abuse. “Unfortunately, it’s a secret to many Catholics, and I don’t know why that is,” he said.

On Dec. 16, 2001, the statue of Our Lady of the New Millennium was moved to Sacred Heart Parish, 8245 W. 111th St., Palos Hills, where it will remain throughout the winter months. The 33-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture has been traveling to sites in the archdiocese for two years. A final determination of its future has not yet been announced.

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