Catholic New World - News Digest

News Update

Groundbreaking for new school

Cardinal George and Mayor Richard M. Daley are expected to attend the June 26 groundbreaking for Christ the King Jesuit High School. The high school, part of the Cristo Rey Network, will be sponsored by the Jesuits' Chicago Province and serve boys and girls from the Austin community and surrounding neighborhoods. As in all Cristo Rey schools, the students will work in corporate entry-level positions one day a week to earn up to 70 percent of their tuition.

The school, at 5058 W. Jackson Blvd., will share its campus with Chicago Jesuit Academy, a fifththrough eighth-grade school for boys who are at risk of not succeeding in traditional schools.

The groundbreaking will start at 10:45 a.m.

Midwest parishes escape floods

Parishes in Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana escaped serious damage after several rounds of storms June 7-8 brought record flooding and devastating tornadoes to large swaths of the Midwest.

Some homeowners, however, were not as fortunate. In the southern part of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis., where the Kickapoo River rose over its banks for the second time in 10 months, the towns of Gays Mills and Soldiers Grove were among those hardest hit. While residents had plenty of warning and were able to escape, dozens of homes were underwater June 12. When the flood first began to build, Father Robert Chukwu, pastor of St. Mary Parish, in Gays Mills, and St. Philip Parish, in Rolling Ground, was attending the first day of Priest Unity Days June 8 at Holy Cross Diocesan Center in La Crosse. "When I went it was pouring rain," he said. "Somehow something in the back of my head told me to go back home."

News Digest

Pope would like Tridentine Mass in each parish, Vatican official says

Pope Benedict XVI would like every Catholic parish in the world to celebrate a regular Tridentine-rite Mass, a Vatican cardinal has said.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also told a June 14 press conference in London that the Vatican was writing to all seminaries to ask that candidates to the priesthood be trained to celebrate Mass according to the extraordinary form of the Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine Mass, restricted from the 1970s until July 2007 when Pope Benedict lifted some of those limits.

Cardinal: Eucharistic congress helps Catholics examine life's purpose

When people pause and question the purpose of their lives, they "yearn for a spiritual answer," said Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko at the opening Mass of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress. "So many people are moving here and there - 6.5 billion people busy working to improve their living conditions," said Cardinal Tomko, Pope Benedict XVI's representative to the congress.

Liturgy, stem cells, abuse key topics for bishops

A lively and intense debate over a 700-page translation of part of the Roman Missal dominated the public sessions of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' spring general assembly in Orlando June 12-14, but the bishops failed to come to a conclusion about the fate of the liturgical text.

With much less discussion, they approved a 2,000-word policy statement calling embryonic stem-cell research "gravely immoral"; directed their Committee on Doctrine to begin revising guidelines for Catholic health care institutions on medically assisted nutrition and hydration; designated Sept. 26, 2010, as National Catholic Charities Sunday; and voted to replace the more formal "vosotros" with the more familiar "ustedes" in Spanish-language Masses in the U.S.

Cardinal to give more papal visit talks

Pope Benedict XVI is a changed man and it's the American people who changed him. That's what Cardinal George told a crowd who gathered in the auditorium of St. Francis of Rome School in Cicero on June 8 to hear his personal reflections on the pope's apostolic visit to the United States in April.

Cardinal George had a front row seat to the visit as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. This talk was the first of three scheduled with the cardinal.

Bishop Perry celebrates 10 years

Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry is celebrating 10 years as a bishop back in his hometown June 29.

Bishop Perry was appointed an auxiliary bishop for Chicago May 5, 1998, to replace Bishop George Murry, who became coadjutor bishop of the Virgin Islands. Murry now is bishop of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio.

Catholic health provider sees insurance as a moral issue

If Resurrection Health Care and its partners succeed in signing 1,000 children up for Illinois' All Kids health insurance program, it will help the health system fulfill a moral imperative to make health care accessible to all, said Father Michael Place, senior vice president for social mission and ministerial development.

The health system sponsored by the Sisters of the Resurrection and the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth is spearheading the "1,000 Healthy Kids" campaign, with the assistance of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Public Schools and many other partners, to draw attention to estimates that up to 376,000 Illinois children may be without health insurance, even though the state offers an affordable health insurance plan for all children.

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