Update

Let Holy Land celebrate: Pope
Pope John Paul II asked Israeli President Moshe Katsav to ensure Christians can celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem, which has been under Israeli occupation and a curfew since late November.

The pope and Katsav, the first Israeli president to visit the Vatican, met Dec. 12. “The president promised” the pope that if there were no new “warnings of terror operations, the Israeli Defense Forces will redeploy outside Bethlehem and, in any event, the IDF will do everything possible to enable pilgrims to celebrate the festivities as appropriate,” said a press statement from the Israeli Embassy after the meeting.
Meanwhile, hundreds of West Bank residents are depending on charity to make ends meet as a curfew extended into December, said officials of Catholic aid organizations.

Respect Life director named
Mary-Louise Kurey has been named director of the archdiocesan Respect Life office. Kurey, a former Miss Wisconsin, is a speaker and author on chastity and pro-life issues.

“The Archdiocese of Chicago is fortunate to have Ms. Kurey lead its pro-life efforts,” said Vincentian Father Joseph Geders, director of the archdiocesan department of evangelization and catechesis. “As a nationally recognized speaker, she is known to many thousands of young people who have been encouraged by her message challenging them to live chaste lives. In doing so she brought the church’s message of the sanctity of life to a new generation.”

Kurey received the 2002 Life Without Limits Champion Award from Wisconsin Right to Life for her work in the area, and was designated a national spokeswoman for the national Best Friends character development program. She received the Character-in-Action Role Model for Youth Friendship Award from that organization for her work in inspiring participants to postpone sexual activity, reject drugs and underage drinking, and strive for the highest educational, career and personal goals.


News

Faith-filled marchers protest possible U.S. invasion of Iraq
As more than 2,000 Chicago-area residents prayed for peace and marched down Michigan Avenue Dec. 15, dozens of U.S. citizens, including several from Chicago, visited Iraqi homes, schools, hospitals and orphanages.

The visitors, travelling in groups known as the Iraq Peace Team and the Iraq Peace Journey, had a double goal: to assure Iraqi civilians that many in the United States were opposed to an invasion and praying for them, and to send word about conditions in Iraq back home.

Pope says Christmas celebration highlights importance of families
As the Vatican took on a festive holiday spirit, Pope John Paul II said he hoped this year’s Christmas celebrations would highlight the importance of the family in modern society.

“Christmas is the ideal feast of the family, because God, by being born into a human family, chose it as the first community to be consecrated by his love,” the pope said Dec. 15.

Pope’s peace message asks new Mideast efforts
Pope John Paul II said the worsening chain of violence in the Middle East calls for a “revolution” in political thinking and for leaders committed to the respect of human dignity.

In his annual World Peace Day message, released at the Vatican Dec. 17, he also suggested the time has come to consider a new international organization capable of ensuring peace in strife-torn places like the Holy Land.

Sale of closed parishes will assist those in need
Want to buy a church?
The archdiocese is taking proposals to sell three of the four South Side churches it closed last year, with bids due by Jan. 13. The proceeds will assist other parishes

Clergy sex abuse was biggest religious news of the year
The second year of Christianity’s third millennium will go down in religious history as the year the clergy sexual abuse crisis rocked the U.S. Catholic Church to its foundations.

By year’s end it was widely regarded as the gravest crisis ever faced by the Catholic Church in the United States, capped with the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Law.

God, grace, novels and imagination
For the record, Father Andrew M. Greeley does not see himself as Bishop Blackie Ryan, the fictional cleric whose intuition helps him heal human hearts while clearing up ecclesiastical mysteries.

But, conceded the 74-year-old priest-sociologist-author, “Sometimes he’s my spokesman.”

Bono boosts AIDS awareness
An Irish rock star and Hollywood actress attracted the crowd. But it was the heartbreaking tale of an African woman that moved them.

Ugandan nurse Agnes Nyamayarwo’s account of the impact of AIDS on her family and friends was the centerpiece of a forum that attracted about 1,600 people to the University of Iowa Memorial Union.

Schedule for Our Lady of the New Millennium
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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