St. Francis at 150

Thousands of worshippers marked the 150th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi Parish on Roosevelt Road at a Spanish-language Mass celebrated by Cardinal George Nov. 30.
The parish, a mainstay of Chicago’s Mexican-American community, was shuttered and nearly torn down in 1994. A group of parishioners staged a sit-in, raising awareness and money to help restore the 1866 red brick structure, and the parish reopened in 1996.
The pastor, Father Donald Nevins, said the church’s six Spanish-language Masses each weekend draw nearly 5,000 people, although only a fraction are registered as parishioners. Most come from outside the neighborhood, as the University of Illinois at Chicago has grown to nearly surround the church in what was once the immigrant-friendly Maxwell Street market district.

Cover photo: Nohelia Alcala, 4, lights a candle before the 150th anniversary Mass at St Francis of Assisi Church Nov. 30. Her mother said she was teaching the girl to pray to ease her asthma. Catholic New World/Karen Callaway


Maryville gets OK

The 91 state wards living at Maryville Academy’s City of Youth in Des Plaines will be allowed to stay and finish their treatment plans, child welfare officials announced Dec. 1.

In September, Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced that he wanted all state wards removed from the archdiocesan-owned facility within eight weeks because of reports of violence, runaways among the youth and sexual abuse by residents, as well as an ongoing federal investigation into Maryville’s handling of Medicaid funds.
He stepped back from that position in October with the announcement that Maryville would be transformed into an “academic enrichment center,” but that current residents would be allowed to stay until they completed their treatment plans as long as Maryville met certain requirements to encourage safety and stability by Dec. 1.

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Celebrating Christmas in Iraq

Military chaplains ready to provide comfort to troops
This holiday season will be an anxious time for more than 32,000 U.S. Catholic families with a relative serving in Iraq.
Although specific dates, times and locations of activities could not be disclosed for security reasons, Catholic chaplains of all military branches will be available to make the Christmas season as joyous and reverent as possible for men and women in the service.
“Part of our job is being able to meet the sacramental needs of the people,” said Franciscan Father Louis V. Iasiello, a rear admiral who is chief of chaplains for the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

Catholic activists applaud death penalty reforms

Catholic activists who oppose the death penalty applauded the Illinois legislature’s Nov. 19 approval of a package of reforms designed to reduce the chances of an innocent person being sent to death row.
“We’re very pleased,” said Deacon George Brooks, an anti-death penalty advocate who works with the Kolbe House prison ministry. “But this shouldn’t be confused with the idea that it’s going to correct all the flaws. It’s still a human system, and there will still be human errors.”


Legislature restores school recognition

Illinois Catholic schools will continue to be eligible for state recognition, under a law passed overwhelmingly by the legislature during its final week of the November veto session.
The Illinois State Board of Education announced last spring that it would no longer certify that non-public schools met state safety and curriculum standards as part of a package of budget cuts. The announcement came after Gov. Rod Blagoevich cut the board’s budget by over $1 million. The non-public schools recognition program was never mandated by the legislature and it was voluntary for the schools involved. State education officials said the cut would save about $350,000, mostly in salaries.


Cardinal, in Rome, challenges ‘valueless’ culture

Modern culture’s exaltation of individualism and its pandering to changing whims are leaving people without firm references to the values and ideas that can draw them together and give them a common identity, said Cardinal George in a talk here Nov. 20.
“Modern culture fosters the dissolution of human community, for it lacks any single publicly acknowledged system for integrating, legitimizing and evaluating human experience,” he said.


A ‘dictatorship of judges’

Cardinal tough on courts in Peoria talk
ust as Peoria’s first bishop was deeply concerned with “how to be Catholic in American society,” Catholics today are facing similar challenges especially with increasing encroachment on human liberties by the courts, according to Cardinal George.
In Peoria Nov. 22 to receive the Archbishop John Lancaster Spalding Award from Bishop Daniel R. Jenky and the Diocese of Peoria, Cardinal George said the courts are quickly becoming “enemies of human liberty” because “any dimension of human experience” is now subject to scrutiny by the judicial system.


Pope urges renewed peace effort

In the face of new violence in the Middle East, Africa and around the globe, Pope John Paul II said the world’s major religions should unite their efforts in a fresh push for peace.
The pope made the appeal at a noon blessing from his apartment window above St. Peter’s Square Nov. 30, the first Sunday of Advent. In a strong voice, he said preparations for Christmas should remind the world that the “prince of peace” is coming.

Vatican trims pope’s Christmas schedule

Pope John Paul II’s Christmas season schedule has been trimmed, apparently excluding his usual ordination of new bishops on the Jan. 6 feast of the Epiphany and his custom of baptizing infants on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
The pope’s liturgical schedule for December and January lists him as presiding over six events, but does not specify if he will be the principal celebrant of the liturgies.


Into Africa

Art projects transport suburban students around the world
Guests who visit the art gallery at Divine Word International in Techny can gaze at representations of African body art drawn on paper hands, wonder at the fantastic creatures depicted in ceramic and papier-mache masks and contemplate the quiet colors of a story quilt.
Such folk art might be expected at Divine Word, the headquarters of a religious congregation dedicated to bringing the Word of God across the world, to places that even other missionaries might not want to go.
But the latest exhibit reflects a mission much closer to home, a collaboration with St. Mary School in north suburban Lake Forest.


Brothers bring message of love to city’s streets

Brother Jim Fogarty hasn’t stood in the crossfire between rival gangs for about nine years now, and, he admits, he probably wouldn’t be so quick to stand between the bullets as he once was.
After all, Fogarty, the only active member of the Brothers and Sisters of Love, now is married and has a son. And, he said, the dynamics of gang violence have changed, making it more unpredictable and more often behind closed doors.


Working–and retiring–together

Religious communities collaborate on care facility for senior members, lay people

While Christian Brother Jim Keane and School Sister of Notre Dame Jean Phelan have years to go before they retire, both think they know where they’ll live out their end years—and what’s more, they’re fairly happy about the prospect.

The two are on a committee planning a new continuing care retirement community in Plainfield, a joint venture of six religious communities active in the Chicago area.

Marian Lakes Villa will provide 300 housing units, including independent living cottages and apartments, assisted living apartments and skilled nursing beds to clergy, religious and lay people on 100 acres that the group is buying from one of the member congregations, the Mantellate Servite Sisters.

Faces of hope, faces of faith

Christian relief organization uses personal contact to encourage donors
Mark Stauffer didn’t want to see suffering—not the kind of misery that stares out at Americans from magazine advertisements and late-night television commercials, urging them to sponsor a Third World child or at least make a contribution.

But when his diaconate formation program in Lexington, Ky., required it, he spent three September days in Haiti on pilgrimage with Food for the Poor, an interdenominational Christian relief organization. By the third day, he was leaning into a hospital crib to pick up a child that could very easily be featured in one of those advertisements.


Haiti-deacons

Deacon Richard Bahnaman has worked in prison ministry and assisted at Mass at Scared Heart parish in Manitowoc, Wis., for years.
But after taking a three-day pilgrimage with Food for the Poor, Bahnaman plans to expand his ministry to find some way to help poor people in Third World countries.

“I can use this in so many ways,” said Bahnaman, who also works as a guidance counselor at public elementary school. “Not just in my work for the church. I can talk to my kids about how other children live.”
He is one of more than 100 Catholic deacons and deacon candidates who have visited Food for the Poor sites in the past 2 &Mac222; years, as guests of the organization.