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10/13/02
Update
Mother Teresa miracle approved
Meeting at the Vatican Oct. 1, members of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes said a healing attributed to the intercession of Mother Teresa of Calcutta should be accepted as the miracle needed for her beatification.
The Vatican provided no information about the meeting, but a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order Mother Teresa founded, said the sisters had been informed of the meeting’s positive outcome.
“We heard that Mother’s miracle was approved,” said Sister Simone, the spokeswoman for the order in Rome. “We wait patiently and with joyful hope for the Holy Father’s announcement” that a beatification date will be set, she said.
News
Vatican drafts rules against admitting gays as priests
Vatican City - The Vatican has prepared a draft document containing directives against the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood, informed Vatican sources said.
The document takes the position that since the church considers the homosexual orientation as “objectively disordered” such people should not be admitted to the seminary or ordained, the sources said Oct. 8.
Neighbors in Faith
Chaldean Catholics-a persistence of faith
A 35-year-old Iraqi-American businessman in Chicago named Mike remembers when his grandfather spoke of Muslim, ethnic Kurds coming to the house in Iraq as guests and discovering later that a ram or horse would be missing.
Because of the current world situation, Mike also prefers the label of Assyrian-the ancient name for the people of the region now known as Iraq-and asked to remain anonymous. He is a Chaldean Catholic-a term first used in the 15th century by Pope Euginus V to distinguish those who acknowledged the authority all the ecumenical councils and the Bishop of Rome (the pope) from those who accepted only the authority of the first three ecumenical councils.
Talk of war with Iraq sparks just-war debate, protests
As Congress seemed poised to line up behind President Bush and join the drumbeat for war with Iraq, a number of scholars and activists in Chicago worked to keep the debate alive.
A broad consensus of Catholic leaders have argued that attacking Iraq now to stave off a possible Iraqi attack in the future is not permissible under the just war theory first articulated by St. Augustine. On Sept. 13, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops outlined its objections in a letter to President Bush signed by Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory, the conference president.
Archdiocese faces first abuse lawsuit
The Archdiocese of Chicago is facing its first civil lawsuit over sexual abuse of children by clerics since the national scandal exploded in January.
A man who says he was abused by former priest Vincent McCaffrey in the mid-1980s at St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Wheeling filed a lawsuit seeking damages from McCaffrey and the archdiocese. The suit accuses the archdiocese of fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Leaders mark Respect Life day with praise, protest
As local Catholics and other pro-life activists marched in support of their cause on Oct. 6, Respect Life Sunday, national leaders praised some recent government actions while challenging state and federal politicians to extend their commitment to pro-life causes.
“Our world has become a more dangerous place” since last year’s terror attacks on American soil, said Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, “[but] it would be a mistake ... to think that contempt for life exists only in certain parts of the world.”
Huge celebration as pope canonizes Opus Dei founder
Before one of the largest and most orderly pilgrim crowds in Vatican history, Pope John Paul II canonized Msgr. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer and called the Opus Dei founder’s message of sanctifying ordinary life valid for all believers.
“To raise the world to God and transform it from within: This is the ideal that the holy founder indicates to you,” the pope said during the Oct. 6 canonization Mass.
Loyola focuses on sweatshops
A month ago, Mahamuda Akter was one of thousands of young women working in garment factories it Bangladesh.
Akter, 18, worked from 7:30 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. every day, and until 4 a.m. if the factory had to meet a deadline. She pieced together clothes to be sold at the giant chain Wal-Mart, whose stores she had never seen until she came to the United States to tell her story.
Akter, speaking through a translator, told an audience of about 200 Loyola University Chicago students and faculty members about the life she led. Her tiny, 79-pound frame dwarfed by the podium, her face never changing expression, she explained how she left school after the fifth grade because her parents could not afford to pay for her studies.
Schedule for Our Lady of the New Millennium
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
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a column of benevolent gossip
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‘Not forgotten’ — Since 1981, America has honored its fallen firefighters at  an annual ceremony held on the National Fire Academy campus in Emmitsburg, Md. In 1992 Congress created the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation and now each October the foundation sponsors an official tribute to those who died in the line of duty the previous year. With over 445 firefighters to be honored this year, drawing thousands of family members and friends, the event was moved to Washington D.C. Our own Father Tom Mulcrone, Chicago Fire Department chaplain, was present for the events, including the candlelight service at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Mulcrone was just named chaplain of the 260,000 members of the International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO.
The ‘roar of the greasepaint’? — The Saint Sebastian Players invite Chicago-area actors to compete in the 10th anniversary Monologue Matchup Competition at 7 p.m. Oct. 18, at their theater in the lower level of St. Bonaventure Church, 1625 W. Diversey. A group of distinguished judges from a number of our better theaters will watch each one perform a two-minute monologue. A group of finalists will get to perform a second two-minute monologue, and winners will be awarded cash, acting classes, theater tickets or other prizes. Participants’ fee is $10; audience members’ tickets are $10 and $7 for seniors. For more info and tickets, call (773) 404-7922.
Lith liberty — On Oct. 13, when the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture honors this year’s “individual who has devoted his/her life to the principles of freedom, liberty and the better understanding of all people,” Birute Jasaitis will be the Woman of the Year. She has a personal motto that says it all: “If there is no work to be done, I need not be there.” Of the many humanitarian efforts Birute has been involved in, from the Lithuanian Catholic Press Society to the United Lithuanian Relief Fund of America, she also succeeded in founding the Lithuanian Children’s Hope and Lithuanian Orphans’ Aid. She is still an active citizen in her Marquette Park community and parish of Nativity BVM (S. Washtenaw).
People in the news — Nurse Mary Ann McDermott of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish (N. Ashland), a Loyola University alum and professor, will receive the 2002 Power of Nursing Leadership Celebration award Oct. 11. . . . The multi-talented Father Patrick Brennan, author and pastor of Holy Family Parish (Inverness), will receive his doctor of clinical psychology degree from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. He served as director of the Office for Evangelization in the arch for 13 years.
Idea Exchange — The Women’s Club of Ascension-St. Susanna Parish (Harvey) will be on hand Saturday mornings in October to help all their 8th grade students and the parish’s graduating high school seniors study for their U. S. Constitution Test that all are required to pass.
Taking it on the road — Part of Dominican Sister Nancy Murray’s new ministry includes adopting the costume and persona of St. Catherine of Siena, 14th century mystic and  Doctor of the Church, and relating her life before audiences. Murray returned to her alma mater, Regina Dominican High School (Wilmette), Oct. 3 for a special assembly, doing just that. A pastoral associate at St. Sylvester Parish (N. Humboldt) for years, Murray now works in the vocation outreach office at the Adrian Dominicans in Michigan. Yep, one of her six brothers is Bill Murray, author, actor/comedian, who once said his sister, “the nun,” claimed she was in show biz because she did liturgical dance. Well, now she’s legit, Bill.
Honk if you’re pro-life — Here’s a thought: “The Vietnam Wall is 500 feet long and bears over 58,000 names. If a Vietnam-type memorial were built in a straight line to list the 41,000,000 un-named infants surgically aborted in the United States since 1973, it would be 704 times longer, or approximately 66 miles long.” October is Respect Life Month.
Junior Clips — Diana Kaluza, a senior at Mother Guerin High School, spent eight weeks in France during the summer living with a French family who spoke only French. Currently in her sixth year studying the language, Diana was treated like a member of their family. She also had the opportunity to serve as a companion and caregiver to the family’s young daughter who has Down’s syndrome. Diana says her adventure “opened my eyes to a new world on so many levels.”
Our ‘sleeping beauty’ — One of the most unique statues in our local churches is in St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church (W. Alexander), the former Santa Maria Incoronata Church. It is a statue of The Dormitian, showing a sleeping Blessed Mother lying inside the glass frontispiece of a side altar dedicated to St. Anne. Catholic Church tradition has it that Mary “fell asleep in the Lord” and was assumed into heaven by angels. Early writers are unanimous, “It was her supreme love for God, nothing else,” which caused her death. Some accounts claim she died in Jerusalem, others at Ephesus, in what is now Turkey. The Council of Ephesus in 431 proclaimed the feast day as Aug. 15.
Send your benevolent gossip to Church Clips, 721 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, IL 60610 or via e-mail to: [email protected]
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