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News Digest

Issue of June 8 – June 21, 2008
The following items are condensed. For the complete articles, please read the print edition of The Catholic New World. To subscribe, call (312) 534-7777.

News Update

Charities offers 'visions'

Catholic Charities will host its 6th annual Visions of My Life" photography exhibit from 5-8 p.m. June 22 at St. Vincent Hall, 721 N. LaSalle St. The exhibit includes photos taken by guests of Catholic Charities supper programs for people who are hungry and homeless.

Guests of the suppers in October 2007 were invited to participate. Each who chose to received a disposable camera with his or her choice of color or black-andwhite film. More than 50 completed the project; their best work will be framed and up for sale at the exhibit. Proceeds go directly to the photographers.

Catholic Charities serves 130 guests each week at its Tuesday Night Suppers at St. Vincent Hall with meals served buffet-style in a dining room decorated with tablecloths and flowers.

New World honored

New World Publications staff received several honors at the Catholic Press Association's annual awards presentation May 30. The awards were for work published in 2007.

They include:

  • first place for best local retail campaign for advertising representative Audrey Kizys, for "The 'Order' of Catholic funerals," an advertisement for Catholic Cemeteries
  • second place for general excellence among Spanishlanguage publications for Chicago Catolico
  • second place for individual excellence photographer/ artist for staff photographer Karen Callaway
  • third place for best feature photo to Karen Callaway for "Hiding Place."
  • an honorable mention for a one-shot special issue for "Cardinal George celebrates 10 years."

Liturgy Training Publications, a book publisher owned by the archdiocese won second place for liturgy books with "Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations," by Anthony Ruff, OSB

News Digest

Shroud of Turin will be displayed to public in 2010

The Shroud of Turin, revered by many as the burial cloth of Christ, will be displayed to the public for the first time in a decade in 2010.

Pope Benedict XVI announced during a June 2 audience with pilgrims from Turin that he had approved the shroud's removal from its protective casket for display to the public in the spring of 2010.

Vatican: Attempted ordination of women incurs excommunication

The Vatican's doctrinal congregation has decreed formally that a woman who attempts to be ordained a Catholic priest and the person attempting to ordain her are automatically excommunicated.

"Both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an excommunication 'latae sententiae,'"

or automatically, said a decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal to share reflections on pope's visit

Cardinal George invites Catholics from across the Archdiocese of Chicago to join him for an evening of prayer and reflection on the time he spent at Pope Benedict XVI's side during the Holy Father's recent visit to the United States.

  • Sunday, June 8 at 7 p.m. St. Frances of Rome Parish (school auditorium) 1500 South 59th Court, Cicero
  • Thursday, June 26 at 7 p.m. St. Christopher Parish 147th and Keeler Avenue, Midlothian
  • Monday, June 30 at 7 p.m. St. Thecla Parish (Falcon Hall) 6725 West Devon Avenue, Chicago

Study says poor students do better at Catholic than at public schools

New research shows that poor and marginalized students attending Catholic schools have significantly higher retention and graduation rates than their peers in public schools.

Conducted by Loyola Marymount University's School of Education in Los Angeles, the study focused on a group of Catholic school students in Los Angeles. All of the students received tuition funding from the Catholic Education Foundation of the Los Angeles archdiocese between 2001 and 2005.

Servites send help to Myanmar

As images from southern Myanmar first flashed onto American screens in early May, the scope of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis was clearly huge.

But the difficulty of getting emergency relief into the country formerly known as Burma compounded the tragedy, as 135,000 are counted among the dead and missing in the Irrawaddy Delta and the main city of Yangon.

One Chicago-based religious order can help by assuring that money sent to Myanmar will reach its destination.

Donations can be sent to Servite Burma/Myanmar Relief Effort, c/o Br. Ed Baran, OSM, Provincial Treasurer, Servite Provincial Center, 3121 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL, 60612.

Ireland's Good Friday agreement 10 years later

During his formative years in Dublin, Martin Rouine, Ireland's consul general in Chicago, didn't see church officials of any denomination taking the lead in promoting the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

"But there were a lot of individual clergy helping to move the process forward," Rouine said during a May 29 look at the Catholic/Protestant power-sharing agreement's first 10 years at De Paul University.

Lumen Cordium Society gathers for annual Mass

Mitch and Joanne Gallas have reached a point in their lives when they are able to give a little more financially to the church.

The kids are grown and there are fewer financial obligations, so when their pastor, Father John Chrzan of St. Joseph's in Summit, asked his congregation to give to the archdiocese's Annual Catholic Appeal they donated enough to become members of the Lumen Cordium Society.

"Now that we're older and we can do this," Joanne Gallas said, "we figured it's time for us to do something where we couldn't before."

The Gallas' and Chrzan joined approximately 650 other Lumen Cordium Society members on June 1 at the historic Holy Family Parish, Chicago, for the society's annual Mass with Cardinal George.