Issue of January 30, 2005

UPDATE

Benefit to aid chastity efforts

Lindsay Younce, the 22-year-old actress who portrayed St. Therese in the recent movie, will speak at the second annual “Educating Minds, Inspiring Hearts” benefit, 6:30 p.m. Feb. 12 at the Drury Lane in Oakbrook. Proceeds will support programs empowering young people to embrace chastity. Cardinal George will attend.

The Chastity Education Initiative was launched in 2003. In its first year, 42 Catholic schools and 16 parishes hosted chastity presentations and the Initiative served more than 20,000 people.

The Chastity Education Initiative recently began the College Outreach Program to Chicago-area Catholic colleges and Newman Centers.

Benefit tickets are $45 for teens, $65 for adults. For information, call Mary Clare Starshak, (312) 649-9151 or Gussie Zawaski, (708) 424-2011. NEWS:

Chicago’s ‘living saint’ buried

Msgr. McDermott was 95; Cardinal cites life, service

Msgr. Ignatius D. McDermott, the Catholic priest known for his lifelong ministry to those afflicted by the disease of alcoholism, died Dec. 31. He was 95. His funeral at Holy Name Cathedral, celebrated by Cardinal George and attended by many of Chicago’s past and present civic leaders, was Jan. 5.

Cardinal George said, “Msgr. McDermott’s priestly heart reached out to those whom others might overlook or forget. We will remember him now before the Lord.”

 

Serra to form vocation group

Serra International, a group devoted to increasing vocations among young people, is planning to organize a Chicago chapter.

Serra, founded in 1934, offers such programs as “Called by Name,” to identify people with the qualities for the priesthood and religious life. “We’ve become a lot more pro-active,” said Chicago’s Ed Verbeke, executive administrator of Serra’s USA/Canada Council.

A Serra organizational meeting will be Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Philip the Apostle Church, Northfield. For information, contact the parish, (847) 466-8383.

 

NEWS

Father Robert McLaughlin collapses, dies

Father Robert E. McLaughlin, who spent 22 of his 39 years as a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago at Holy Name Cathedral, died Jan. 24 following an apparent heart attack while on vacation in Florida. He was 64.

McLaughlin was named pastor of Mary, Seat of Wisdom Parish, Park Ridge, in 2002 following 12 years as cathedral pastor from 1990-2002. He also had served as rector of Niles College Seminary.

Funeral arrangements were still pending when The Catholic New World went to press.

 

Devastation hits home for aid worker in Indonesia

Eko Priadana Morcky was the first Catholic Relief Services worker to return to Banda Aceh after the earthquake and tsunamis that destroyed the city. But he was not there to work; he was there to search for his family.

Eko, an information technology specialist in CRS’ office in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, lost 20 family members. He returned to Banda Aceh Dec. 28, two days after the disaster.

There was little news available on conditions in Aceh province, and Eko said that before he left he began to prepare himself emotionally that his sister, brother, grandmother and other relatives were dead. The night before he left, he and his mother gathered in their living room for evening prayer.

“I told her, ‘Just accept what will happen. If we are going to lose all our family, just accept. I have to realize that there is no chance. But I still pray that they are safe,’” he told Catholic News Service in January.

After arriving, he went to the home where his brother and sister lived, about 3.5 miles from the sea. The house was full of mud and water, and there were no signs of life.

 

Supreme Court turns down bid to save Schiavo

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review a lower court decision overturning the Florida law that allowed Gov. Jeb Bush to order reinsertion of a feeding tube for Terri Schindler Schiavo, who is brain-damaged.

The decision, issued without comment Jan. 24, moved forward the efforts of Schiavo’s estranged husband, Michael, to remove her feeding tube again, although other court actions initiated by the woman’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, continue.

 

It’s Catholic Schools Week

Students, principals, teachers and parents

celebrate across archdiocese

“Faith in Every Student” is the theme around which archdiocesan principals, teachers and students once again will observe Catholic Schools Week Jan. 30-Feb. 5 with a wide range of activities.

Most of the archdiocese’s 235 elementary and 41 secondary schools have scheduled activities, principals and staff reported, with many including Sunday Masses and open houses.

 

Book shares seniors’ lives, memories, with family

Ruth Urbanc believes “everybody’s got a story and it’s worth telling.”

To that end, the in-home senior counselor from Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Peoria and her friend Kim Keenan compiled a book featuring dozens of questions to help families, and especially seniors, share the story of their lives.

Called “Life’s Journey,” the 38-page, spiral-bound book took a year to design. It is a tool to assist Urbanc and others in understanding the needs of senior clients they visit and befriend through counseling work.

 

Program gives seniors, others, a legal leg-up

A law office run by a Catholic bishop and a Jewish lawyer for the working poor, seniors and the disabled might have the makings of a great TV series, but to former Chicago Consumer Affairs Commissioner Caroline Schoenberger, the Chicago Legal Clinic is “more like a fairy tale”

“I don’t think there’s another place like it,” said Schoenberger, who became the Chicago Legal Clinic’s supervisory attorney last fall. Schoenberger’s primary project is a new program at the clinic called Legal Advocates for Seniors and People with Disabilities. It operates out of a new office on Chicago’s North Side at 1111 N. Wells.

 

Archbishop Gregory installed in Atlanta

An ecumenical and diverse crowd of about 8,000 gathered at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park Jan. 17 to witness the installation of Atlanta’s new Catholic leader, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory.

Archbishop Gregory, formerly the bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill., and immediate past president of the U.S. bishops, succeeds newly retired Archbishop John F. Donoghue, who had headed the archdiocese since 1993. Archbishop Gregory was an auxiliary bishop in Chicago before being assigned to downstate Belleville.

 

Pro-life marchers pray, rally in D.C.

President Bush promotes ‘compassion’ for unborn

Bush pointed to laws passed during his first term in office, including the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003. Implementation of the law has been held up by three separate federal district courts—in New York, Nebraska and California—which have declared it unconstitutional.

Under the measure, “infants who are born despite an attempted abortion are now protected by law,” he said to applause. “So are nurses and doctors who refused to be any part of an abortion.” And, under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which he signed into law last April, “prosecutors can now charge those who harm or kill a pregnant woman with harming or killing her unborn child,” Bush said.

 

Biggest papal ‘threat’? It’s teens, not terrorists

For the Italian police who help ensure the security of Pope John Paul II, terrorism is the biggest theoretical threat to the pope.

However, in the pope’s day-to-day life, teenage and young adult faithful are the biggest real threat, they said.

The young people’s devotion to the pope and their enthusiasm mean the police agents wage a constant battle against brave young souls willing to jump security barricades to touch the pope.

 

Responsibility, not condoms, key

Following a brief controversy in Spain over Catholic teaching on AIDS and condoms, Pope John Paul II explained the church’s position in language that emphasized sexual responsibility and avoided explicit mention of condoms.

That was in keeping with previous pronouncements by the pope, who has never specifically addressed whether condoms could or should be used in AIDS prevention. Nor is the issue taken up in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” or official Vatican doctrinal statements.

 

‘To heal the sick’

World Day of the Sick is for everyone

The annual celebration of the World Day of the Sick will be held Feb. 11 half a world away at the Shrine of Our Lady, Queen of the Apostles, in Yahounde, Cameroon.

But Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago shouldn’t feel distanced from the event, especially with the vast contributions made to society by Catholic health care.

 

 

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