|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
9/29/02
Updates
Pope to become Roman citizen
As bishop of Rome, Pope John Paul II has visited most of the city’s parishes and churches over the last 24 years. Now the city is expressing its thanks by making the pontiff an honorary Roman citizen.
The tribute will be declared at a low-key ceremony at the end of October, Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said Sept. 22. For his part, the pope said he would “gladly accept this honor” from a city he has made his own. Veltroni said he first broached the idea in a meeting with the pope in January.
“It’s a sign of recognition for a person who loves Rome and who has done a lot for our city,” Veltroni said.
News
Black Catholics gather in Chicago, chart future
U.S. bishops tell President Bush: No justification for pre-emptive Iraq strike
Any “pre-emptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq” cannot be justified at this time, the U.S. bishops told President Bush.
The bishops urged Bush “to step back from the brink of war and help lead the world to act together to fashion an effective global response to Iraq’s threats.”
Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II said Iraq’s promise to allow the unconditional return of U.N. weapons inspectors was “good news” and called for prayers for continued efforts to prevent war.
Fetus’ tiny hand changes news photographer’s heart
Michael Clancy is a changed man, and it happened with a glimpse of a tiny, outstretched hand.
A veteran free-lance photojournalist living in Nashville, Clancy had been hired by USA Today to photograph surgical procedures being performed on fetuses. A fortysomething, single, erudite professional who says he’s “spiritual but uncommitted to any particular religious dogma,” Clancy then considered himself to be someone totally uninvolved in the debate over abortion.
Something happened to change Clancy’s attitude and challenge his beliefs on Aug. 19, 1999, as he stood, gowned and in surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, with Canon camera in hand.
CCHD grants awarded to 23 area groups; seek to aid poor
Nearly two dozen Chicago-area groups helping people in low-income communities have received more than a half-million dollars in grants through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Cardinal George announced the awards at a Sept. 25 reception at Catholic Charities’ St. Vincent Hall.
The campaign funds self-help groups in poor communities that work for a better standard of living through economic development and housing and education initiatives. Grants are distributed based on need, not religious affiliation.
Catholics remain largest U.S. faith
With a 16 percent increase in membership during the 1990s, Catholics remained the dominant religious body in the United States in the latest religious census.
The Catholic population in the United States numbered 62 million in 2000, according to “Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States: 2000,” a report compiled by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and published by the Glenmary Research Center in Nashville, Tenn.
St. Michael’s at 150
Witness to history, eager for the future
Its history spans the Chicago fire, wave upon wave of immigration and two world wars, and its list of founders reads like a Who’s Who of Chicago street names.
As St. Michael Parish in Old Town begins celebrating its 150th anniversary this month, unofficial parish historian Dale Neubeck has a lot of material to work with.
As Neubeck sat in a pew facing the high altar (which includes 84 images of angels, if you count St. Michael in his armor and the defeated Lucifer at his feet), he reflected on what he has learned since he first put together historical tours of the church in 1971.
Vocation directors ‘must face reality’
Coadjutor Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., told a national gathering of diocesan vocation directors in Boston that reform in the wake of the clergy sex abuse crisis has to start with facing up to reality.
He also warned that reform will not come quickly or easily.
A hymn to the Spirit in Russia
Two missionaries arrive in eastern Russia in 1992 with an almost impossible challenge. After three generations of Communist control, nearly every Catholic had been murdered, starved or rigorously taught that religion was “an opiate, something only the weak need,” said Father Dan Maurer, one of the missionaries.
“This is the only place in the world, except North Korea, where the Catholic Church had to begin from absolutely nothing,” said Maurer, who recently told the story at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Lake Zurich. “There was not even an underground church or people saying prayers. Those who did those things were pretty much wiped out in the first generation.”
Sainthood for Sheen?
As canonization cause begins, archbishop’s legacy of prayer builds
Using an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a prayer written by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, a Colorado man is promoting the “spiritual adoption” of unborn children by Catholics around the country.
The effort is the latest invoking the legacy of Archbishop Sheen, whose cause for sainthood was made in recent weeks. Archbishop Sheen, the famed TV evangelist who once headed the Diocese of Rochester, N.Y., was proposed to the Vatican as a candidate for sainthood Sept. 9 by the diocese for which he was ordained a priest, Peoria, Ill.
Magazine debates gays in priesthood
In an article in America magazine, a U.S. priest working in the Vatican said homosexually oriented men should not be ordained to the priesthood.
Father Andrew R. Baker, a staff member of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops, argued that if a man has a predominant or exclusive same-sex attraction, that in itself is grounds for bishops to have “a prudent doubt regarding the candidate’s suitability” for receiving the sacrament of orders.
Voucher forum shows rifts
Representatives of the Catholic Conference of Illinois and the United Church of Christ debated vouchers-with a Quaker high school teacher caught somewhere in the middle-during a Sept. 19, forum at the suburban Westchester Community Church.
Similar programs will be held in other parts of the state over the next few months “to see if there is any danger of general agreement,” laughed Earl Smith of the Illinois Conference of Churches, the forum’s moderator. The Illinois conference is comprised of 14 “very diverse” denominations.
Schedule for Our Lady of the New Millennium
Sept. 29-Oct 13: St. Jerome Croatian, 2823 S. Princeton Ave., Chicago (312) 842-1871.
Oct. 13-27: St. Margaret of Scotland, 9837 S. Throop St., Chicago (773) 779-5151.
Oct. 27-Nov. 10: St. Florian, 13145 S. Houston Ave., Chicago, (773) 646-4877.
Nov. 10-24: St. Andrew the Apostle, 768 Lincoln Ave., Calumet City, (708) 862-4165.
Nov. 24-Dec. 8: Queen of the Universe, 7114 S. Hamlin Ave., Chicago, (773) 582-4662.
Dec. 8-15: St. Denis, 8301 S. St. Louis., Chicago. (773) 434-3313.
Movies at a Glance
Capsule reviews of movies from the U.S. Catholic Conference's Office for Film and Broadcasting, judged according to artistic merit and moral suitability. Go to reviews
top
Front Page | Digest | Cardinal | Observations
Interview | Classifieds | About Us | Write Us
Subscribe | Advertise | Archive | Catholic Sites
New World Publications | Católico | Directory | Site Map
|
|
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
a column of benevolent gossip
|
New York’s finest — The Catholic League pointed out recently that the majority of rescuers who ran into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 were Roman Catholics. NYPD and FDNY officials say between 85 and 90 percent were Catholic. Not looking for a medal, just wanting to give “due recognition to the heroic role Catholics played in this tragic event.”
 Did ja know? — Jim Nicholson, a Catholic, has been our ambassador to the Vatican for a year now. When you hear highlights of his life, it’s obvious why he received the Horatio Alger Award. Born during the Depression, the third of seven kids, he grew up on an Iowa tenant farm. His alcoholic father could only provide mismatched shoes, little food and a house without electricity or plumbing. Nichol- son started earning money in the second grade, walking farm to farm selling greeting cards. At 10 he was pumping gas at a filling station, and by high school, was a “gandy dancer” on the Great Northern Railroad. He was on the National Honor Society in high school and captain of the football team. In 1957 he won admission to West Point and served in the army for eight years. An army ranger paratrooper and infantry platoon leader in Vietnam, Nicholson received the Bronze Star and other medals. Afterwards he earned a master’s degree and a law degree while serving in the reserves for 22 years, retiring a full colonel. As the Irish would say, “He’s one of our own.”
Latin dead? Not so much — Latin is resurrecting at St. Thomas More Parish (W. 81st St.) with classes for beginners to advanced on Saturday evenings, 6-7 p.m. in the rectory. The church also has a Latin Mass at noon each Sunday. . . . Last spring the Salesian University of Rome started a Latin course on the Internet. It was open to anyone. Within days of the announcement, the Web site was impossibly jammed. . . . The Greek Orthodox Church has just rejected a proposal to introduce modern Greek in its liturgy, after a bishop made a translation and celebrated the liturgy in the Greek vernacular recently.
Reach out and touch someone — The Ladies of Charity were founded in 17th-century France by St. Vincent de Paul, patron of all charity. With St. Louise de Marillac, they quietly cared for the poor. This lay association is regrouping in the arch after being absent a number of years. They hope to be of assistance to Marillac House here in various ways. Connie O’Brien, a teacher at Josephinum High School and Ellen Reilly of Incarnation Parish (Palos Heights), in the new chapter, attended a national assembly of the Ladies in Albany, N.Y. Sept. 25-29. For more information on the apostolate, call Helen Burke at (773) 792-2294.
People and places — Bishop Dominic Carmon, SVD, former pastor of St. Elizabeth ((E. 41st St.) and the former Our Lady of the Garden (S. Langley) parishes, is the new National Chaplain of the Knights of Peter Claver and its Ladies Auxiliary. . . . St. Paul Church (W. 22nd Place), with its towering brown brick twin steeples, built “without a nail” after the Chicago Fire, now has two spot lights that illuminate the twin peaks so you can’t miss them. Two peregrine falcons are nesting in its south tower to control the pigeon population and keep the church facade neat.
Not just plumes and swords — Locally the Knights of Columbus just had their street collection for the mentally disabled. The KCs latest international project was announced last month — restoring the final resting place of Pope Pius XII and three other sites in the Vatican Grottoes beneath St. Peter’s. They will donate about $300,000 for the work. It’s been a 20-year collaboration so far between the KCs and the Vatican that included sprucing up the façade of St. Peter’s dramatically for the Jubilee Year. Michelangelo refused payment for his work on the Basilica. Today artisans have to be reimbursed.
 Sticking around — A Christmas stamp featuring Jan Gossaert’s “Madonna and Child” will be issued by the U.S. Postal Service Oct. 10 in Chicago. The Renaissance art on the new 37-cent stamp is a holding of the Art Institute of Chicago. Artwork depicting the Virgin Mary and Christ child has been featured on U.S. Christmas stamps since the mid-1960s.
Do something different — It’s one thing to sing in a choir—something else to sing a Christmas concert in a grand, historical church that survived the Chicago Fire! St. Michael Church (See Page 19 this issue) in Old Town, invites voices in all sections to rehearse on Thursday evenings, starting Oct. 4, with its concert choir. The Dec. 14 program will be conducted by Jonathan Griffith, Carnegie Hall’s conductor-in-residence. Call Judith Trosen at (312) 642-2498, Ext. 21.
Milestones — Anna Mosier was born and raised in St. Benedict Parish (W. Irving Park). She married and moved to St. Ferdinand’s (W. Barry) where she was a volunteer at St. Andrew Life Center in Niles for 25 years. Now she’s a resident at the center and just celebrated her 100th birthday on Sept. 21.
Who’s going where? — Father Jim Presta, unflappable rector of St. Joseph Seminary is leading another pilgrimage next year-to Ireland! “An Irish Odyssey,” July 10-21, will include the shrine of Our Lady of Knock, Dublin, Kerry, Waterford, and lots more. Call him at (773) 973-9707 to get a brochure.
Send your benevolent gossip to Church Clips, 721 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, IL 60610 or via e-mail to: [email protected]
top
|
|
 |
|
|
