Update

Church opposes slavery push
Officials from the departments of State, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services discussed international and domestic solutions to the boom in human trafficking worldwide at a March 5 forum sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services.
Each year, between 700,000 and 4 million people around the globe are forced into what Pope John Paul II has called “a shocking offense against human dignity,” and what the State Department’s Amy O’Neill Richard called “modern slavery with deception, fraud and coercion.” Human trafficking essentially involves men, women and children being traded as slaves for sex or labor.

Pathways grants aid disabilities
One in five Americans has a disability yet many houses of worship are not equipped to welcome everyone. Pathways Awareness Foundation, a Chicago based not-for-profit, awards congregations for welcoming people of all abilities.

Pathways Awareness Foundation is now accepting entries for the 2003 Open Hearts Awards and Junior Open Hearts Awards through March 31.

Adults may enter with a two-page description of how their parish welcomes persons with disabilities. Children may submit an essay, drawing or computer presentation about how to welcome people with disabilities. For information, call (800) 955-2445 or e-mail [email protected].

News

Senate urged to support bill banning partial-birth
The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities has urged the Senate to approve the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 without amendments to weaken it.

In a March 10 letter to senators, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Philadelphia asked them to support the measure, known as S 3, over a substitute proposal that was expected to be introduced. The Senate began floor debate on the bill March 10, with a vote expected later in the week.

Sexual abuse prevention programs mandated
Dioceses must have child protection policies, plans in place by June 20

Kathleen L. McChesney, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection, has told U.S. dioceses they should have comprehensive “safe environment” programs for child protection in place by June 20.

In a paper sent in late February to all dioceses and eparchies—dioceses of Eastern-rite Catholic churches—McChesney outlined the essential elements of such programs. They ranged from education programs for children to training, screening and written conduct codes for adults.

Boston cuts budget again; Mass attendance drops
The Boston Archdiocese has announced more central budget cutbacks and said Mass attendance was down 14 percent in its annual head count last fall.

In a letter sent to pastors March 3, Bishop Richard G. Lennon, apostolic administrator, said the archdiocesan central operating budget will be cut by $4 million in the coming fiscal year.

Bishop Kicanas succeeds Tucson’s Bishop Moreno
Pope John Paul II has accepted the resignation of Bishop Manuel D. Moreno as head of the Diocese of Tucson, Ariz. He is succeeded by Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, formerly an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Bishop Kicanas, 61, was named coadjutor bishop of Tucson on Oct. 30, 2001, and automatically succeeds Bishop Moreno, 72.

Welcoming ‘strangers among us’
Cardinal calls for more help for immigrants
The Gospel calls Christians to welcome the migrant and the refugee, Cardinal George told about 500 people gathered to discuss immigration policy Feb. 28, and in a state where one in five residents is an immigrant or a child of an immigrant, we need to do a better job.

The cardinal offered the first keynote address at a two-day Illinois Immigrant and Refugee Policy Summit sponsored by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, explaining how and why the church is called to speak for immigrants in a complex time of growing insularity and globalization.

Know who’s what and where
2003 directory even includes our three new bishops

Staffers at New World Publications, the church agency that produces the invaluable Official Directory of the Archdiocese of Chicago, were sent scrambling in late January when Pope John II named three new bishops for Chicago.

Despite the fact that the appointments—Bishops Gustavo Garcia-Siller, Francis Kane and Thomas Paprocki—came well after the deadline for the nearly-completed book, the team managed to include the trio—and on their own special page.

When kids fuss at Mass ...
Is it cute or a distraction? Many different views

Msgr. Philip Murnion of the New York-based National Pastoral Life Center tells this joke: “A baby starts crying loudly in Mass during the sermon. The mother stands up to take him out. ‘Don’t worry, he can stay,’ the priest says from the pulpit. ‘He’s not bothering me.’ The woman says, ‘Thanks, Father, but it’s you who are bothering him.’”

Other than that, Msgr. Murnion is not sure what to say about the topic of noisy or restless children in church. “I’d just be making it up,” the expert on parish life says of the highly sensitive and universal issue.

Parish fights ‘new slavery’ of Detroit topless bar
Club Rain, a “gentlemen’s club” being built near St. Aloysius Church in downtown Detroit, will undoubtedly bring degradation to the surrounding area, said Franciscan Father Mark Soehner, pastor.

But Soehner had good news Feb. 21 when Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Daphne Means Curtis ruled that the club’s owners cannot build a new topless club adjacent to an existing topless club, The Grind, because the former building on the site was demolished instead of being renovated.

Proclaim the faith fearlessly, cardinal urges catechists
Modern Christians are engaged in “a battle for the soul of the modern world,” Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos told an intercontinental gathering of catechetical leaders in Miami.

To win, they must use every method at their disposal, from the Internet to television, said the cardinal, a Colombian native who is prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy. But they must never resort to diluting the Christian message in order to make it palatable, and they must always keep Christ at the center, he said.

Conference calls for researchers,
doctors to respect human dignity

Babies and the terminally ill have as much dignity—and as much right to be treated with care and respect—as people in the prime of their lives.

So said several speakers at a Catholic-sponsored conference on Human Dignity and Contemporary Health Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Unfortunately, the speakers said, that may soon be a minority opinion.

Faith leads filmmaker to confront gun violence
Catholic upbringing taught Moore to speak his beliefs
According to filmmaker Michael Moore, the United States is far surpassing its nearest competition in the industrialized world, with about 11,000 dead. But what country really prides itself on being the place where the greatest number of people kill each other yearly with guns?

Moore’s latest film, “Bowling for Columbine,” looks at gun violence in the United States. Including interviews with such varied figures as shock-rocker Marilyn Manson and NRA president Charlton Heston, the film embodies what Moore sees as a vocation: confronting the halls of influence and power with the hardest questions of social justice.

Shooting the moon
Play continues saga of Catholic family’s struggles
Two years ago, when Chicago audiences were introduced to the Pazinski family in “Over the Tavern,” young Rudy was asking his nun questions that most Catholics wouldn’t raise out loud until after Vatican II—and expressing a reluctance to go through with confirmation until he got answers.

Rudy, now a seminarian, got over that hurdle by the time audiences meet the family again in “King o’ the Moon,” which opens in previews at the Mercury Theater March 14. “Over the Tavern” producers Libby Adler Mages, Mari Glick, William Pullinsi, and Tony D’Angelo, in association with Darren Lee Cole are bringing “King o’ the Moon” to the stage as well.

Their findings are all wet’
Advocates insist abortion, cancer linked
Local activists are promising to keep spreading the word that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, despite a Feb. 26 statement from the National Cancer Institute to the contrary.

“Their statement is at war with itself,” said Karen Malec, president of the Illinois-based Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, noting that the statement acknowledges that a full-term pregnancy reduces a woman’s risk of breast cancer. “Their findings are all wet.”