Issue of February 1, 2004

Charities offers Latino meals

Catholic Charities Lake County Senior Community Services has inaugurated its Latino Dining Program at the Hayes Center at St. Joseph Parish, Round Lake.

Meals will be served at noon Monday through Friday. Anyone aged 60 or older is welcome. Reservations are required. For information, call (847) 740-6748 or (847) 782-4267.

The dining room was converted from a conference room in the St. Joseph Parish Hayes Center, which has served for many years as the western Lake County office of Catholic Charities. It was funded in part by a grant from the Northeastern Illinois Area Agency on Aging.

 

Officials charting interfaith group

Auxiliary Bishop Frank Kane and Dominican Sister Joan McGuire, director of the Office for Ecumenism and Inter-religious Affairs, were among 50 Christian church leaders at a January meeting in Texas to work toward the launch in 2005 of a new entity, Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A. (CCT).

The group’s purpose is “to enable churches and national Christian organizations to grow closer together in Christ in order to strengthen our Christian witness in the world.”

 

NEWS:

Pope, Cheney meet to rebuild U.S.-Vatican ties

Vice President Dick Cheney’s first meeting with Pope John Paul II came at a time when U.S.-Vatican relations are in a rebuilding phase following the war in Iraq.

Cheney met with the pope in a private audience Jan. 27 and later held talks with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. The discussions dealt primarily with the current situation in Iraq, the Middle East and international terrorism.

 

Nebraska diocese explains why it balked on USCCB audit

In a statement Jan. 16 the Lincoln Diocese explained why it did not participate in a nationwide survey on the nature and scope of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy over the past half-century.

Lincoln was one of six dioceses and eparchies—Eastern-rite dioceses—named Jan. 6 as not having participated in the survey, conducted last year by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Of 195 dioceses and eparchies in the country, 189 supplied the requested information.

 

Sharing program bonds communities, people

When Bob Ryan, a parishioner at St. Raymond de Penafort Parish in Mount Prospect, first started looking for ways his parish could cooperate with Providence of God Parish on 18th Street, the term “parish sharing” had not yet been invented.

That was more than 30 years ago—“I think maybe 1971,” said Ryan, now a member of the archdiocesan Parish Sharing Commission—and the St. Raymond community was just starting to look for ways to connect with Catholics beyond its parish borders. The pastors of the two parishes were friends, so their congregations began an informal sharing arrangement.

 

Efforts to end racism begin at Pastoral Center, schools

When it comes to encouraging an anti-racist society, the Chicago Archdiocese plans to start from the inside out. On Jan. 23, the archdiocese’s Office for Racial Justice unveiled an anti-racism strategic plan that starts by training archdiocesan staff members to recognize racism within their own walls.

“The anti-racism strategic plan is created to dismantle racism and build relationships within our parishes, schools and institutions,” said Heart of Mary Sister Anita Baird, director of the Office for Racial Justice, which has been preparing the plan for more than two years. “Then, we’ll carry that pattern into the larger society so that we can all dwell together in God’s love. … We have to dismantle racism in the church so the church can be an effective instrument of anti-racism in society.”

 

Schools honor teachers, look to future with new development

Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago are planning for the future with two upcoming studies on how best to offer Catholic education and several new educational initiatives, Superintendent Nicholas M. Wolsonovich announced Jan. 22.

Speaking to audience gathered to honor 14 outstanding Catholic school teachers, Wolsonovich outlined an ongoing study of how to structure Catholic schools in Lake and northwest Cook counties, suburban areas that have seen much growth in recent years. That study will address how many schools are needed, where they should be located, and how to pay for them, among other issues. It should be completed this spring, Wolsonovich said.

 

John Paul’s ‘place is secure’

Martin Marty might not be Catholic, but that doesn’t mean he has no opinion on the pontificate of John Paul II.

Actually, Marty told an audience at the John Paul II Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, his status—as a Lutheran, and a religious studies professor at secular universities—gives him enough distance to see John Paul and his effect on the Catholic Church and the world a bit more objectively.

 

Pope: Media hostile to families

Modern mass media too often encourage negative family trends, uncritically depicting infidelity and giving “positive support” to divorce, abortion and homosexuality, Pope John Paul II said.

The pope, in an annual message for World Communications Day, called on parents, communicators and authorities to fight what he termed an agenda “hostile” to family values—but without censorship.

 

Discovering ‘the art of God’

Art Institute’s Rembrandt exhibit has a spiritual side

Thousands of Chicago-area residents are expected to stream through the doors of the Art Institute of Chicago’s special Rembrandt exhibition starting in February, filing through galleries displaying more than 200 of the Dutch master’s work.

Some will come to study his progression as an artist, which is the theme of “Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher,” said Father Richard Fragomeni, vice-rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii and associate professor of liturgy and preaching at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Some will come to appreciate the beauty of the works, and some will come so they have something to talk about on their coffee break or at a cocktail party, Fragomeni said.

But some will come and see God.

“Seeing is always a very subjective thing,” Fragomeni said. “Some people see, and some people don’t see. But when you see, something happens spiritually.”

 

A glimpse of ‘Heaven’ from a butterfly’s wings

DePaul play takes youngsters on a journey through the circle of life

“The Highest Heaven” begins and ends around the Day of the Dead, the early November Mexican celebration in honor of deceased loved ones.

But José Cruz González’s play, which centers around the transformation of a young boy between his 12th and 13th birthdays, seems just as appropriate for Chicago in February, a short, cold, gloomy month that brings with it the promise of brighter days ahead.

This new offering from the DePaul University Theatre School’s Chicago Playworks for Young Audiences and Families follows Huracán, (Michael Blum), a Mexican-American boy growing up in Depression-era California. Huracán unwillingly embarks on a literal and symbolic journey, as he is forcibly repatriated to Mexico, separated from his parents, and confronted with harsh realities about caring for himself and other people.

 

Poll: Catholics choosing nationality over faith

Catholics in the United States so strongly identify themselves first as Americans before they think of themselves as Catholics that the church is in danger of losing its identity, according to pollster John Zogby.

Especially among younger people, religion plays an increasingly smaller part in how people think of themselves, Zogby told an audience Jan. 20 at The Catholic University of America.

 

‘Passion’ star challenges youths

A screening of Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” and a keynote speech by actor Jim Caviezel, the movie’s star, were among the highlights of the national leadership conference of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, or FOCUS, held in Denver Jan. 16-18.

The sixth annual conference drew nearly 1,400 students, FOCUS missionaries and campus ministers from colleges across America.

 

Pope never commented on Gibson’s ‘Passion’ film, says papal secretary

Vatican City — Pope John Paul II never said “It is as it was” after watching Mel Gibson’s film on the passion of Jesus, said the pope’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.

“The Holy Father told no one his opinion of this film,” the archbishop told Catholic News Service.

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