Issue of March 14, 2004

School to open; another closing

A new Catholic school will open in September at Old St. Mary’s Parish, Chicago. The school will meet the growing needs of young parents in the South Loop community for an academically excellent, faith-based education for their children.

Meanwhile, Our Lady of Ransom School in Niles will not reopen in September.

Administrators at Old St. Mary’s, the oldest parish in the archdiocese, will enroll pre-school children during the 2004-2005 academic year and plan to add a grade level each year, through grade eight.

“Our goal is to assist parents and guardians in their important work of forming their children’s faith in the Catholic tradition while providing students with a solid academic foundation to prepare them for secondary education and beyond,” said Paulist Father Francis DeSiano, Old St. Mary’s pastor.

Officials of the Archdiocese of Chicago have accepted the recommendation of the leadership of Our Lady of Ransom Catholic school that the school not reopen in September because of low enrollment and financial constraints.

After dialogue among archdiocesan officials and parish and school leadership, Bishop Francis Kane and schools superintendent Nicholas Wolsonovich recommended to the cardinal that the school not reopen.

“Despite all best efforts by this school’s leadership during an extensive review and planning process, this school was left with no choice but to take this action,” said Wolsonovich. “The school has pledged to work with parents to place students in nearby Catholic schools.” The school’s current enrollment is 209 students.

The parish says it will extend financial assistance to all families who choose to send their children to another Catholic school in the area.

 

SW cemetery is 1st since 1958

Cardinal George will officially break ground in Orland Park on April 5 for the first new Catholic cemetery in more than 45 years. Good Shepherd Catholic Cemetery—the archdiocese’s 47th cemetery—will be built south of 159th Street on 104th Avenue in the Southwestern suburb.

To open in mid-2005, the cemetery’s 320 acres are bordered by 104th Avenue on the west, 159th Street on the north, and 167th Street on the south. The last new cemetery to open was St. Michael Catholic Cemetery, Palatine, in 1958.

It will be built on land held in reserve by Catholic Cemeteries since the 1950s. Last year, Catholic Cemeteries assisted over 19,000 families with burial arrangements, said Father Patrick Pollard, archdiocesan director of Catholic Cemeteries.

 

NEWS:

Catholics urged to ‘faithful citizenship’

On March 16, Catholics, like other Illinois citizens, will head to the polls for this year’s primary election.

Primaries in other states have largely determined the presidential match-up this November: It’ll be George Bush and John Kerry. But along with local races, Illinois voters also will choose a candidate to replace for outgoing U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald.

The primary slates on both sides, Republican and Democratic, are full.

The Catholic Conference of Illinois, the public policy arm of the Catholic Church in Illinois, invited each of the candidates seeking to become the junior U.S. senator from Illinois to answer a series of questions which Catholic voters should be asking as part of the church’s call for “Faithful Citizenship,” the document released last year by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

 

Making money no sin,

Vatican official says

Nothing is wrong with making a profit in business, as long as the profits are the result of honesty, hard work, creativity and full respect for employees and clients, said the Vatican’s top justice official.

“Being a business executive is hard work that requires creativity and dedication because it takes place in an extremely competitive atmosphere where certain choices can be very costly or even can ruin the lives of many people,” said Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

 

Bishops’ abuse reports spark more allegations

The release of two major documents on the church’s clergy sexual abuse scandal made huge news nationwide in late February and early March, drawing national headlines and leading to an increase in allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

Two studies released Feb. 27 looked at the extent of clerical sexual abuse of minors and what caused it and allowed it to continue. The reports were released after the last issue of The Catholic New World went to press.

 

Building The Farm for survivors

The Linkup, a national organization focusing on healing victims of clergy abuse, is planning a new project, The Farm.

Linkup officials said The Farm, located in Kentucky, will be a place of respite and recovery for abuse survivors.

 

Digging in the streets where Jesus walked

People of faith should not look to archeology to “prove” the Bible, said Dan Bahat, an Israeli who is the former district archeologist for the city of Jerusalem and a leading authority on the Temple Mount.

Rather, they should look to archeology to illuminate what their faith already tells them, said Bahat, who believes that his work and that of others can allow the faithful to walk on the same paving stones trodden by Jesus and his disciples.

 

Activist urges social action

Social justice activist Patricia Crowley explained how her activities are grounded in Catholic teaching and urged her audience at a March 8 talk at the Newman Center on the University of Illinois Chicago campus to select an issue and become involved.

 

Bringing prayer, concern and faith

I remember the last time I took my father to the grocery store, just before he moved into a nursing home. He held onto a shopping cart, his body tense with panic. Shoppers were going three times his speed—in front of him, on all sides, swerving around him like a roadblock. Underneath his anxiety was a look of defeat and isolation. Even the world of grocery shoppers had left him behind.

I silently prayed for him then that, through the kindness of others, he could live the rest of his life with dignity and purpose.

There’s an answer to that prayer in the Catholic Church, from two well-established and effective ministries, the Ministry of Care and the Ministry of Praise and Mercy.

 

Citizenship lessons at the grassroots

Yazming Garcia spent the weekends leading up to the March 16 primary making telephone calls and stuffing envelopes for Democratic Senate hopeful state Sen. Barack Obama—that is, the weekends she didn’t travel to Wisconsin or Iowa to support her favorite presidential candidate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Such political convictions might be a little unusual among the high school set—statistics show that people 18 to 24 make up the group least likely to vote—but Garcia is in good company at her school.

 

 

Rosminian, 90, was ‘Passion’ film’s priest

With very formal manners and a teasing glint in his eye, 90-year-old Father Jean-Marie Charles-Roux has been welcoming journalists to his office at the Rosminian Fathers’ headquarters in Rome.

The priest, who holds a French passport but spent decades in London and in Rome, is especially sought after by French journalists looking for a French connection to Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ.”

 

Art feeds the soul and honors memories

Fra Angelico witnesses to faith, the creativity and dreams of a Dominican friar

Creators and patrons of spiritual art have a friend they may not know. And they should.

The Fra Angelico Art Foundation is a “hidden gem,” said Dominican Father Vincent Zarlenga, founder and director of the 16-year-old organization.

 

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