Catholic New World - News Digest

News Update

Looking for long marriages

Family Ministries of the Archdiocese of Chicago is searching for the longest black Catholic marriage in the archdiocese.

The couple married longest will be honored March 30 at the Black Catholic Celebration of Marriage, hosted by Bishop Joseph N. Perry and Family Ministries.

The event begins with a 4 p.m. vespers service, which will include the renewal of marriage vows, followed by a banquet in the parish hall at St. Clotilde, 8430 S. Calumet Ave.

All black married couples are encouraged to attend. Anyone who knows of black Catholic couples married 50 years or more is invited to submit their names by calling (312) 751-8264 or visiting www.arusinetwork.org/ABCCM. Those couples will be invited to the event as guests.

Cost for others is $20 per couple.

Loyola U gets $1.5 million

The Loyola University Chicago School of Law's Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies has received a $1.5 million "cy pres" award in connection with the settlement of a Tennessee state court class action suit involving price fixing claims in the rubber chemical industry.

The cy press award concept allows for distribution of damage awards in class action lawsuits where it is not possible to determine each plaintiff's actual damages, or when plaintiffs fail to collect their portion of the award.

"We were delighted to recommend to the court that Loyola University Chicago School of Law receive this award because of its distinguished track record of research, scholarship and programs focusing on the importance and meaning of our antitrust laws," said defense counsel Laurence Sorkin, a partner at the firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel.

Established in 1994, the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies is a non-partisan, independent academic center designed to explore the impact of antitrust enforcement on the individual consumer and the public, and to shape policy issues.

News Digest

Pope Benedict XVI has finger on U.S. pulse

When Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States this spring, he will not be stepping into the unknown.

Through his many personal contacts with American church leaders and papal diplomats, his past trips to the U.S. and his ability to remember much of what he hears and reads, Pope Benedict has his finger firmly on the pulse of the church in the United States.

Bishops from around the world coming to Rome consistently have expressed awe and admiration for the pope's remarkable depth of knowledge, his familiarity with everyday events worldwide and his recollection of minute or even obscure facts and past events.

College students gather, pray for shooting victims

For the roughly 300 students, faculty and staff who gathered at Madonna della Strada Chapel at Loyola University Chicago, the annual Mass for College Students on Feb. 15 offered a chance to pray for the victims of the shooting at Northern Illinois University the day before.

Worshippers had the chance to sign a memorial book for the victims of the shooting - five killed and 16 injured before the shooter, Steven Kazmierczak, took his own life - on their way into the church.

Campus ministers help students, staff cope

When news broke that a gunman had opened fire Feb. 14 in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall, computers and cell phones on Chicago-area college campuses lit up with text messages, voice mails and emails.

Students gathered around television screens and laptop monitors, eventually learning that more than a score were shot, five of whom died, before the shooter turned a gun on himself.

By the next day, it was learned who the five students were, including 20-year-old Catalina Garcia, a sophomore from Our Lady of the Mount Parish in Cicero. Garcia was the youngest of four children of immigrant parents from Guadalajara, Mexico, and she hoped to become a teacher.

Most parishes won't celebrate St. Pat's

This will be the year St. Patrick's Day wasn't for most parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Easter comes early on March 23, and March 17, the day when St. Patrick's Day is usually celebrated, falls on the Monday of Holy Week.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariate for Divine Worship said the feast day would "not be commemorated liturgically" in most dioceses this year because the observance of Holy Week takes precedence.

Cuban Catholics 'wait and see' on Castro's resignation

Opinions vary on the effect Fidel Castro's resignation as president of Cuba will have on the Catholic Church there. While many Cuban Americans in Chicago are not sure, most agree the church is growing and strengthening despite the persecution and repression it experienced - particularly during the first 20 years or so Castro was in power.

"The differences won't be that important because Fidel has been so overpowering," said Dr. Raphael Carreira, who left Cuba in 1961 and now is a Chicago-area psychiatrist in private practice and also associated with Resurrection Health Care.

'Faith Hall of Fame' inducts Bears' George Halas

A major problem in the Catholic Church today is a lack of male spirituality, said Danny Abramowicz, a former San Francisco 49er and New Orleans' Saints' wide receiver and a former assistant Chicago Bears coach, during his recent installation into the new Sports Faith Hall of Fame.

"Men have dropped the ball as spiritual head of their families," the author of "Spiritual Workout of a Former Saint" told those gathered at a Feb. 23 ceremony at Lake Forest's Halas Hall. "It's time for men to stand up for Jesus Christ the same way they stand up for everything else."

Reclaiming Sunday as a day for Christ and loved ones

Father Richard Hynes is on a mission. He wants to help Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago reclaim Sunday for God and for themselves.

There was a time not too long ago when Sunday was a day for reflection, for family and for God. It was a time to pause and take stock of the past week and look to the coming one. Through our 24/7 culture we've made Sunday into just another day to get things done.

"We have to reclaim it," said the director of the archdiocese's Department of Evangelization, Catechesis and Worship. "It not just about worship," Hynes said. "It's family life - spouse, kids, family." Hynes calls the latter "intentional relationships," meaning connections with other people that we seek out and invest time and energy in. These relationships are different for everyone depending on their state in life. For some, they may be nuclear or extended family. For others, they may be close friends.

Seven Hispanic deacons ordained

Cardinal George ordained seven Hispanic laymen as permanent deacons on Feb. 17 at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Parish, 3721 W. 62nd St., Chicago.

These men then began presiding at baptisms, weddings and prayer services, including benedictions, in their home parishes in Cook and Lake counties.

The seven men join the archdiocese's other 643 deacons in service in Chicago.

Catholics called to be reconciled to God, one another through Jesus, Springfield bishop writes

Bishop George Lucas has invited Catholics in his diocese to "come to Jesus Christ and to be reconciled to God and to one another in him."

He issued the invitation in a pastoral letter exploring the nature of reconciliation. In it he urged Catholics to engage in the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving as preparation for reception of the sacrament of penance and reconciliation.

She brings 'Peace' to Catholic students

Cynthia Stewart is the first to admit you never know where life will take you. She originally thought her career would involve architectural engineering, a field in which Stewart was formally trained. But the Holy Spirit had other ideas for her.

Stewart instead developed a business - Perfect Peace, which now conducts spiritual retreats for Catholic elementary and high schools. She said her road to entrepreneurship began when she was in eighth grade at the now closed St. Raphael School in Englewood.

Let's make parishes places to hear God's word anew

Growing up in Philadelphia, whenever I was asked where I lived the answer I gave was: "St. Bridget's Parish." The person asking me the question instantly knew that I was from the neighborhood called East Falls.

I've learned that it was exactly the same way in Chicago. The parish was the center of our lives. There was no need for outreach and few knew the word "evangelization."

Vatican astronomer visits city to discuss church's observatory

On Feb. 19, a night when a lunar eclipse graced Chicago's skies, more than 40 people gathered with Cardinal George in his residence to learn about the Vatican Observatory from Jesuit Father George Coyne, director emeritus and Vatican Observatory Foundation president.

Astronomical study is not often associated with the Catholic Church but the two have a history dating back to at least 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar after churchmen noticed the Julian calendar was slightly off. "It's a historical incident that started a tradition," said Coyne.

Catholic New World - Newspaper for the Archdiocese of Chicago

Publications

Sections