a column of benevolent gossip

What goes around comes around — St. Celestine Parish (Elmwood Park) will set up a labyrinth again this year in their gym for Holy Week. Labyrinths (the concept is over 3,500 years old) reflect trust and simplicity in following a set path; a maze, on the other hand, indicates complexity, confusion, and choices. It’s part of the happy borrowings of Christianity from pagan sources. Many a cathedral has retained its ancient labyrinth. There’s one in Central Park in NYC, in some hospitals, malls and even in a couple prisons. For people too busy or unable to walk one, there are finger labyrinths in paper or wood. Hey, I think the coil on my electric stove is a labyrinth.

Lemons into lemonade — In a recent interview, Opus Dei spokesman, Marc Carroggio, was asked about the upcoming movie, “The Da Vinci Code,” taken from Dan Brown’s piece of fiction. Will Opus Dei sue for being falsely targeted as the plot’s villain? Apparently not. Carroggio says more than a million curious persons have visited Opus Dei’s Web site (www.opusdei.org) in the past year, in just the USA. The prelature is grateful for the indirect publicity. “We would like to offer anyone who wants it, the chance to know about Opus Dei firsthand. This, by the way, is something that seemed to interest neither the author of the book nor the producer of the movie.” . . . With more than 7.5 million copies of the novel in print since 2003, Catholics may want some ammunition in polemics before the movie premieres in May: Steve Kellmeyer’s “Fact and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code” is an insightful 95 pages. . . . “Catholic Answers” has a detailed report called “Cracking the Da Vinci Code” at www.catholic.com/ library/ cracking _da_vinci_code.asp... Sandra Miesel of Crisis Magazine did a special piece on it, if you go to www.crisismagazine.com. . . . Or there’s a 65-minute DVD called “Exposing the DaVinci Code,” available from Amazon.com for about $12, by the co-pastor of Family Christian Center, a mega-church in Munster, Ind. Pastor Stephan Munsey points out, “The strongest pulpit in the world is a movie theater.” Amen.

Parish potpourri — If your parish is Holy Name Cathedral (N. State), February Mondays have been dance-lesson-days. Partners not needed (they rotate), and they learn the basic waltz, West Coast Swing, and Salsa. . . . St. Alexander’s (Palos Heights) has a job networking ministry for those seeking employment or aiming to better their career. . . . Sister of Charity Theresa Sullivan, a grad of St. Joan of Arc School (Evanston), returned recently to give her pitch for vocations to the religious life before a receptive audience. . . . St. Constance Parish (N. Strong) said prayers for loved ones or friends affected by the stadium roof collapse in Katowice, Poland, where 67 died and 140 were injured recently. . . . Our Lady of Lourdes (N. Ashland) is sponsoring a course in Sign Language, noon-2 p.m. Saturdays, Feb. 18-April 8, with interpreters and employees of the Chicago Hearing Society.

On the road again — The Little Sisters of the Poor in Palatine, recently received a gift from a generous, anonymous friend—it was hard to wrap—a new handicap-accessible activity bus for their elderly residents! The nuns’ 20-year old bus broke down over a year ago; repairs were too expensive, and fund-raisers didn’t yield enough shillings. Residents will once again be able to enjoy outings to the movies, shopping malls and zoo once more.

First things first — Bob Viencek has a dream. A preservationist, his childhood church of St. Mary’s, an hour from Pittsburgh, is set for demolition in the small town of Brownsville, Penn. He wants to buy it from the diocese. His plan is to renovate the church with the help of some national artists, save its stunning stained glass windows, make its high-domed ceiling a canvas for the life of JP II (a la the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel), and turn it into a non-denominational shrine to the beloved pontiff. Town too small? Viencek says so were Fatima and Lourdes. First the diocese has to sell him the property.

Taps — Activist/mother Cindy Sheehan came to town Feb. 16 as a guest of St. Xavier University’s Student Activities Board. The 500 available tickets were expected to sell out quickly. This was Sheehan’s first appearance in Illinois and on a college campus. Her son, Army Spec. Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in an ambush two weeks after arriving in Iraq. He had attended a community college for three years before enlisting in the Army. Young Casey served as eucharistic minister and was active in his parish in Vacaville, California.

Power o’ prayer — Research can be costly. In trying to learn more about the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Mo., and their e-mail prayer request ministry, I ended up ordering some bars of handmade Swiss lavender-scented soap and a CD of the nuns’ monastic chants on their Web site. The custom of praying for people has been a priority for these Benedictines for more than a century. Years ago, dozens of them spent hours at small desks writing or typing personal responses to prayer requests. Since the 1990s they’ve been on the Internet at: www.benedictinesisters.org/ Home/ homepage.html. Today they get almost 400 messages a month, even from atheists. They also receive some 300 letters each month mailed to: Benedictine Monastery/ 31970 State Highway P/ Clyde, MO 64432.

Neither wind nor rain — Hurricane Katrina couldn’t stifle the Catholic press in New Orleans. First, The Clarion Herald relocated to high ground at the Old Ursuline Convent (built in 1752), in the French Quarter. Because U.S. Mail couldn’t be depended on for a while, the paper’s 10-member staff personally delivered its first dozen issues (45,000 copies each time) to 90 churches that were open in the New Orleans archdiocese, as well as to parishes in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houma-Thibodaux. (Their usual circulation is 70,000.)

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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