Catholic New World - News Digest

News Update

Lenten Bible study offered

Join other Catholics before or after work (or on Saturday morning) to learn about the most important book in a Catholic's life: the Bible. The Office for Evangelization and Pauline Books and Media, 172 N. Michigan Ave., are offering four Bible-study classes for a meaningful Lenten experience. All classes will use "The Great Adventure" Biblestudy series as a guide, with the exception of the DePaul University location.

Tuesdays, Feb. 5-March 25, 7:45-8:45 a.m., Metropolitan Club, Sears Tower, $35, coffee, juice and rolls.
Tuesdays, Feb. 5-March 11, 7- 8:30 p.m., Pauline Books & Media, 172 N. Michigan Ave., $20, optional workbook, $20.
Thursdays, Feb. 7-March 20, 7:45-8:45 a.m., DePaul Chapel, Wabash & Jackson (with March 6 off for the Illinois Catholic Prayer Breakfast) led by Dominican Father Jordan Kelly, director of the Office for Evangelization, focus on Sunday Mass readings, $30.
Saturdays, Feb. 2-March 22, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Pauline Books & Media, 172 N. Michigan Ave., $20, optional workbook, $20.

To register for the Metropolitan Club or DePaul programs call the Office for Evangelization at (312) 751-3855 or e-mail cdelatorre@ archchicago.org. For programs at Pauline Media & Books call (312) 346-4228 or e-mail helraphaelfsp @aol.com. Registration ends Feb. 1.

Parish leaders to gather Feb. 2

Pastoral council members and other parish leaders will gather at Guerin Prep High School, 8001 W. Belmont Ave., River Grove, for Parish Leadership Day on Feb. 2 "Taking the Spirit to the Streets, Bringing the People Closer to Christ is the theme of the day-long event. Highlights include a keynote by Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Joliet, more than 100 workshops and a lunchtime question-and-answer session with Cardinal George. Costs range from $45 per person to $280 for a group of nine. Call (312) 751- 8364.

Fathers, sons invited to event

Rich Donnelly, a veteran Major League Baseball coach, will be the featured speaker at "Champions of Faith," 9 a.m.-noon Feb. 23 at Holy Trinity High School, Division Street west of the Kennedy Expressway. The audience also will watch "Champions of Faith," a documentary on major league players, coaches and managers living out their Catholic faith. Individual admission is $10; family admission for up to three, which includes a continental breakfast and a "Champions of Faith" DVD, is $40. Call (312) 751- 3855.

News Digest

Vatican to encourage greater caution when opening causes for sainthood

The Vatican is preparing to issue a set of instructions to promote "greater caution and more accuracy" in the opening of new sainthood causes by local dioceses, a top Vatican official said. Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, said the instructions were needed to reflect the "new spirit introduced by Pope Benedict XVI in beatification procedures."

Pope seeks fairness for young immigrants, urges them to respect

Pope Benedict XVI appealed for fair treatment of young immigrants and said they are often at risk of exploitation. At the same time, he urged immigrants to always respect the law and never allow their frustration to turn to violence. He made the comments at a noon blessing Jan. 13, which was marked by Catholic communities in many countries as the World Day for Migrants and Refugees.

St. Padre Pio's body to be exhumed, displayed for veneration

The body of St. Padre Pio will be exhumed, studied and displayed for public veneration from mid-April to late September, said the archbishop who oversees the shrine where the saint is buried. Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, papal delegate for the shrine in San Giovanni Rotondo, announced Jan. 6 that he and the Capuchin friars of Padre Pio's community had decided it was important to verify the condition of the saint's body and find a way to ensure its preservation.

Catholic schools to get safety funds

Catholic schools in Illinois will be able to tap into state funds to help pay for health and safety improvements for the first time this year, as the legislature approved a provision allowing nonpublic schools to share in the Educational Improvement and School Safety Block Grant. The measure, included in the budget implementation bill signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in early January, allows schools to spend their share of the $75 million block grant on mandated teacher background checks, fire safety, automatic defibrillators and other items designed to protect the wellbeing of students.

Marian joins two other schools with drug testing

Next fall, students at Marian Catholic High School will enter a new era in their school's history: compulsory drug testing. While the plan to test all students still awaits formal approval following one more parent meeting next week, all signs are pointing to this policy being a go for the 2008-09 school year.

The Chicago Heights school would test each student at the beginning of the year using hair sampling, which can identify drug use up to 90 to 100 days in the past. Students will receive adequate notice of when they will be tested, said Marian High School president Dominican Sister M. Paul McCaughey.

Marian has drug tested before for disciplinary reasons but never all its students. If a student fails the confidential test, his or her parents will be notified along with the principal and a guidance counselor and he or she will be retested at their own expense. Each test will cost the school $50. A student would face dismissal if he or she fails twice in one year.

Other efforts in archdiocese Mandatory drug testing at high schools within the Archdiocese of Chicago is not new. St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights and St. Patrick High School in Chicago both have similar policies. The latter implemented its policy in the 2004-05 school year and the former last year. Both schools test using hair follicles, which is considered the most accurate form of testing.

The success these two schools have had with their anti-drug programs helped administrators at Marian Catholic make their decision.

"It's given us support in making the decision because those schools have seen positive benefits with those programs," said Principal Dominican Sister Kathleen Anne Tait.

Helping teens and parents

The new policy is not a response to increased drug use at the school, McCaughey said. Rather, it's an effort to help the students stay drug free. If they know they are going to be tested at school they may think twice before using.

"It gives them something else to hold on to to be able to say 'no' to what's out there," said the president, who added that she will be the first one to undergo a drug test as a sign of solidarity with her students. The new policy is also an effort to help parents identify a teen's drug-abuse problems early.

"It puts us in a better position to assist families that have teenagers who have used drugs. We're not aware [now] unless it comes through discipline issues or if a parent comes forward and identifies a child's issues," said Tait.

Marian Catholic has been proactive in the area of drug- and alcohol-abuse prevention in the past. For instance, for the past two years students attending school dances have undergone breathalyzer tests at the event to help curtail alcohol consumption before and during school dances.

Young adults rekindling their faith

Figuring out what to do with your life, falling in love and getting married, searching for a new sense of home - all of these transitions often occur in the lives of young adults. So where does faith fit in?

Throughout these changes, connections to God can easily fade, but those who stay rooted in their faith can find a deeper sense of security, fellowship and strength.

The ministry of the archdiocese dedicated to young Catholics is called ReCil, for Reclaiming Christ in Life and for a "resealing" of one's baptismal waters. ReCil is for young people 26 and under, calling them to do more than give "weekend lip service" and to be living, breathing testimonies to God in their day-today lives, as Timone Newsome, director of ReCil, explained.

St. Michael's League supports soldiers, seeks peace

Days before his death, a priest's mission was revived when St. Michael's League, a group dedicated to having Masses said each month for law enforcement officers, restarted.

Now, almost 12 years later, St. Michael's League continues to meet every third Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. at Most Holy Redeemer Parish,. 9525 S. Lawndale Ave., Evergreen Park, offering Mass for not only police officers but also military, firefighters, paramedics and peace.

Six months until WYD

In less than six months, young Catholics from Chicago will join other young Catholics in Australia for World Youth Day 2008. The weeklong event, which takes place July 15-20 in Sydney, is open to people ages 16 to 35 and is attended by the pope.

Pope John Paul II began WYD on Palm Sunday 1986 with an event in Rome. Since then, WYD has been celebrated annually on Palm Sunday on a diocesan level around the world.

Three kids from one family serving our nation

Elvira Sosa never saw herself as a military mother. No one in her family, or her husband, Pedro's, family, had ever served in uniform.

So when her middle son, Robert, told her that he had enlisted in the Army four years ago, she didn't believe him at first. "It didn't even hit me when he got his ID," she said. "It wasn't really until he left."

Then, her older son, Oscar, decided to join his brother in the service.

Most recently, her daughter, Rosemary, has enlisted in the National Guard. And the baby of the family, 6-year-old Adrian, has announced he wanted to be a soldier like his brothers.

Sosa said she copes with the threat of her children being in harm's way by spending a lot of time in prayer. A parishioner at Nativity BVM Parish, the mother of five works the night shift at a Keebler plant and uses her dinner break to pray the rosary. During the day, she cares for her oldest daughter, Laura's, two children.

10 years later, Cristo Rey still blazing a trail

In September 1996, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School opened its doors to 97 students in a recently-closed Catholic elementary school building Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. It had missed its enrollment target by a third, and had no standard curriculum. It was short of just about everything needed to run a school - including the jobs it was counting on students to hold to help pay for their educations.

Now having completed 10 years, Christo Rey is the academic home of 530 Latino students. All of them hold jobs as part of the school's groundbreaking Corporate Internship Program, and the school has become the flagship for the Cristo Rey Network, which includes 18 other schools around the country that work on the same model, including St. Martin de Porres High School in Waukegan. Next fall will see the opening of another network school in Chicago, Christ the King Jesuit High School in the West Side Austin neighborhood.

School offers green training

A new kind of seed will sprout this spring at St. Monica Academy. The school will roll out a curriculum built around environmental education called SEEDS, for Student Environmental Education and Development Studies, in hopes that it will not only take root on the Northwest Side campus but spread to Catholic schools across the archdiocese.

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