Update

Cardinal to lead pro-life march
Cardinal George will lead a special bilingual (Spanish and English) pro-life at an 8 a.m. Mass April 12 at Holy Name Cathedral. Following the Mass there will be a procession to the Planned Parenthood facility at LaSalle and Division streets, Chicago.

The event is sponsored by Helpers of God’s Precious Infants and the Mundelein Seminary Gospel of Life Group, in cooperation with the archdiocesan Respect Life Office.

The group will pray the rosary in front of the facility. At a previous prayer vigil in 1999 at a different abortion center, Cardinal George said, “The church always accompanies the dying with prayer. People die in an abortion clinic, and it is good to pray for them and for the living they leave behind.” For information, call (312) 751-5355.

St. Philip school won’t reopen
Lagging enrollment will close St. Philip the Apostle School, Northbrook, at the end of the current school year.

“Sadness comes as a companion with this decision to close our parish school,” said the Father Larry Dunn, pastor, after archdiocesan officials accepted the parish leadership’s recommendation. “But gratitude and gratification hold hands as we look back on the school’s 47-year history.”
Enrollment was hindered, Dunn said, by demographic shifts; perceptions based on the school’s small size; an academically competitive public school district and tuition costs.

St. Philip the Apostle began the school year with 87 students. There are only 67 registered for 2003-04. Students from St. Philip the Apostle who wish to continue their education at a Catholic school beginning next fall will be able to attend one of several Catholic schools in the area.

News

Catholic schools, teachers to get an assist from Loyola
Starting next year, Catholic school teachers and administrators will have somewhere to turn when they are looking for teacher training help and curriculum advice aimed just at them.

The School of Education at Loyola University-Chicago will launch the Center for Catholic School Effectiveness next fall under the leadership of Lorraine Ozar, who has served for the last 10 years as associate principal at Loyola Academy in Wilmette.

Open house today, then a cloister
Dressed in brown habits, black veils and sandals, the five Poor Clare nuns who call the Archdiocese of Chicago home stood at the open door of their new monastery, welcoming guests and conducting them on a tour through the chapel, flower sacristy, chapter room and refectory.

For their visitors—mostly families with several children in tow—it was a chance to see the inner workings of the usually closed world of the cloister. For the sisters, it was a chance to hug friends, kiss babies and share their way of life.

The March 21 open house was one of a series the Poor Clares held to welcome the people of the archdiocese who have welcomed them since their arrival four years ago. Their home, the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception, is to be dedicated at a 10 a.m. Mass March 30, followed by an enclosure Mass March 31.

Pope beatifies five new saints
Beatifying a layman, three nuns and a priest who spent their lives caring for the poor and exploited, Pope John Paul II said March 23 every Christian is called to put faith into practice.

During the Mass in St. Peter’s Square, the pope used a new chair, which allowed him to be wheeled behind the altar for the eucharistic prayer.

Church fire disrupts restoration at St. Gregory
When a fire broke out at St. Gregory the Great Parish on the North Side in the early morning of March 8, it meant more than cleaning carpets and repainting.

The 97-year-old Gothic church was nearing the end of a two-year project to clean and restore its ornate shrines and paintings, and now much of that work will have to be redone, said artist-in-residence Joe Malham.

CCI grapples with negative legislative agenda
With new leaders and a budget crisis in Springfield, Catholic legislative advocates have their hands full this year, said Robert Gilligan, director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois.

The conference works to educate legislators about Catholic positions on various public policy issues—as well as offering information about how some decisions could affect the state’s Catholic institutions.

Chicago religious enlist seniors in cold-weather war
Two religious sisters from Chicago—who know from experience all about freezing temperatures—came up with a plan to help the needy in Selma, Ala., fight some unusual January cold weather: homemade fleece blankets.

BVM Sister Florence Heflin, director of the Catholic Center in Mosses, one of Alabama’s poorest communities, asked women who sew quilts weekly at the center to put their hands to a new winter project: making fleece blankets.

‘Bonhoeffer’ film reveals a passionate, faithful life
Whenever filmmaker Martin Doblmeier screens his 2002 documentary “Bonhoeffer,” audiences want to stay and talk afterward.

They want to discuss the meaning of faith and religious commitment in general, and how that commitment plays out when it comes to stopping a dictator.

“When we started this, we knew it was a great story,” said Doblmeier, the film’s producer and director and president of Virginia-based Journey Films. “But we had no idea how many issues it would be relevant to when it came out. It has a lot of contemporary importance to people right now.”