Issue of September 12, 2004

UPDATE:

Youth rallies set to ‘Get Real’

Back-to-back “Get Real” youth rallies will be held Oct. 2 and 3 as the archdiocesan Office of Youth Ministry kicks off the “Year of the Eucharist.” The rallies, at Marian Catholic High School, Chicago Heights, and Holy Family Parish, Inverness, “will be awesome as they seek to draw youth, and those who minister to them, into the life of Christ and his church,” said Angus McDonell, office director.

The events will feature speaker and musician Jesse Manibusan, MTV’s Matt Smith and Chicago Gospel rap artist Glen McCarthy. Both events will feature food, music and youth-oriented Masses.

Bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller will be celebrant Oct. 2 at Youth Day South and Bishop Jerome Listecki will be the celebrant Oct. 3 at Youth Day North.

Cost for each rally is $10 in advance and $15 at the door. For information: call (312) 751-5316 or visit www.youthchicago.org, www.holyfamilyparish.org, or www.marianchs.com.

Mo. suit against bishop dismissed

The Missouri Court of Appeals Aug. 24 dismissed a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Jefferson City Diocese and former Florida Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell, saying the statute of limitations had expired.

The three-judge appellate panel upheld a lower court ruling. The court also said the four-year time clock on RICO-based civil claims had also run its course.

The plaintiff, a 51-year-old man from Massachusetts identified only as John T. Doe, claimed the abuse began in the late 1960s when he was 15 and continued until 1993. He said he confronted the bishop about it in 1994.

Bishop O’Connell resigned as bishop of Palm Beach, Fla., March 8, 2002, acknowledging sexual misconduct years earlier.

 

 

NEWS:

Pope: Holiness is greatest Christian gift

The greatest contribution every Christian can offer to the church and the world is the gift of holiness, Pope John Paul II said in an outdoor beatification ceremony that brought two men and one woman a step closer to sainthood.

“May many men and women of our time be won over by the allure of Christ” and be compelled to bring the hope and love inherent in his message to all people, he said in his homily.

 

Poll: War, economy trump abortion for Catholics

Abortion was named as a “very important” priority by 49 percent of Catholics who expect to vote for President George W. Bush, coming behind Iraq, terrorism, moral values and the economy, each of which was named by at least 64 percent in a recent Pew poll.

The poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked voters nationwide to list their highest priorities this election year. Participants typically named more than one topic and their accumulated responses were presented according to what percentage of people named them.

 

Head of national effort to address clergy sexual abuse sees progress

As the nation’s Catholic dioceses and eparchies undergo a second annual auditing of their efforts to prevent and address the problem of clergy sexual abuse of minors, the woman overseeing the effort is encouraged by what’s been done so far.

Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said she sees signs that public confidence is increasing as a result of the bishops’ actions in working to ensure the safety of all children from clergy abuse.

 

Men on a mission

Bishop Abramowicz Preparatory Seminary bridges cultures

When Waldemar Stawiarski thought about his future life as a priest, he always pictured himself doing missionary work. But he never imagined it would be in the United States.

“I never thought about coming here,” said Stawiarski, now associate pastor of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr Parish in Tinley Park. Five years ago, when he was studying to become a priest in his native Poland, Stawiarski was among the first group of seminarians invited to Chicago’s Bishop Abramowicz Preparatory Seminary. Now heading into its sixth year, more than 61 men from Poland have transferred to this seminary to serve the Archdiocese of Chicago and fill the decline in vocations for the priesthood.

 

Evangelization

What one parish is doing—and succeeding

Move over Jehovah’s Witnesses. Parishioners at St. Gerald’s in suburban Oak Lawn are also going door to door, spreading the word.

For the past five months, between 30 and 35 members of a committee calling itself Souls for Christ have rung an estimated 1,800 doorbells. And there are perhaps 5,000 more homes in the parish to visit, said Marcy Colantone, one of the volunteers.

 

Iraqi religious leaders growing wary of coalition

The people of Iraq—Muslims and Christians alike—are growing more suspicious each day of the U.S.-led coalition that invaded it, purportedly to end the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and to bring democracy, religious leaders said.

Iraqis are capable of peaceful coexistence, said Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad, Iraq, “but there is one thing missing: security.”

“We must cry loudly: ‘We do not want anything but our rights,’” the Chaldean Catholic bishop said Sept. 6 in Milan during the Community of Sant’Egidio’s annual interreligious meeting for peace.

 

Low-gluten hosts endorsed

A magazine devoted to people with celiac disease has endorsed a low-gluten Communion host made by Catholic nuns in Missouri as “perfectly safe” for celiac sufferers.

The quarterly magazine, Gluten-Free Living, came out shortly before a public controversy emerged over a New Jersey mother’s fight to change the Catholic rules for such hosts. The church requires bread made from wheat, containing at least some gluten, for the celebration of the Eucharist.

 

Pope: U.S. church can heal from abuse wounds

Addressing bishops from Boston and other New England dioceses, Pope John Paul II said he was confident that the church in the United States could heal the wounds caused by the sex abuse scandal.

While the cases of priestly abuse have “cast a shadow” on the church, they must never be allowed to weaken Catholics’ public witness of faith and hope, the pope said Sept. 2.

 

Northwestern’s campus ministry grows up

Sheil Catholic Center begins program on Chicago campus

Father Randy Knauf has been walking around Northwestern University’s Chicago Campus introducing himself.

Knauf, a Capuchin Franciscan, serves as the first full-time Catholic campus minister to an academic community of 3,000 graduate students in law, medical, business and journalism schools.

“I’ve gotten a very warm welcome here,” said Knauf, who has spoken with everyone from students to deans to the campus police.

 

Participants in Sept. 24-25 meeting to reflect on ‘Living the Eucharist’

When we reflect about enriching our faith life, a visit to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont may not be the first thought that comes to mind.

However, the event there Sept. 24-25 is significant to all Catholics—parishioners as well as those who serve as catechists, teachers and youth ministers.

The “Living the Eucharist” Chicago Catechetical Conference is co-sponsored by the archdiocesan offices for Catechesis, Catholic Schools, Youth Ministry and Asian Catholics. Parishioners are invited.

 

The dream comes true

Waukegan’s St. Martin de Porres opens on Cristo Rey model

 

 

By Michelle Martin

Staff writer

 

When Karen Ochoa was a young girl growing up in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, she knew where she wanted to go to high school: Cristo Rey.

That Jesuit high school allows students to pay for most of their education by working five days a month in school-sponsored corporate internships, giving them work experience as well as the majority of their tuition.

But for Ochoa, now a bubbly 14-year-old who plans to become a pediatrician, it was not to be. She moved with her family to Waukegan, attended Jefferson Middle School and thought she would have to go to public high school, too.

That all changed with the opening of St. Martin de Porres High School in downtown Waukegan.

 

Catholic school test scores: best of the rest

As about 111,000 students prepared to return to Catholic school classrooms, administrators trumpeted standardized test scores which, they say, show Catholic school students scoring above the national average in all areas.

In the top subject area, seventh-graders in the archdiocese on average outperformed nearly four out of five students nationally in language arts.

“The biggest news is that our students are continuing to perform at a very high level,” said schools superintendent Nicholas Wolsonovich. “We do what we say we want to do. Our schools offer an excellent academic and authentically Catholic education.”

 

New center helps students find the route to success

The archdiocese’s new Center to Promote Student Success is receiving praise from Catholic school parents and teachers.

The center focuses on the learning needs of all archdiocesan elementary and high school students—from those who may be struggling in the classroom to those who are gifted academically.

It is a collaborative effort of the Office of Catholic Schools’ Inclusive Education Program and United Stand, a counseling and diagnostic agency for inner-city Catholic schools run by the Felician Sisters religious order.

 

Coed Guerin—it’s ‘weird’ for some, ‘challenging’ for others

The signs outside Guerin Prep aren’t the only things that have changed.

Take the signs on some of the restrooms inside.

“It’s so weird to walk around and see men’s rooms,” said Mary Chraca, a junior from Wood Dale.

This fall, for the first time in its 42-year-history, the high school operated by the Sisters of Providence on Belmont Avenue in River Grove admitted boys as well as girls.

 

Schools start uniform curriculum

The quality of Catholic education for students in Chicago Archdiocese schools will be enhanced by the phasing in this school year (2004-2005) of a new uniform curriculum in grades pre-K through 12.

“The curricula will help facilitate a smooth transition for any student who transfers from one Catholic school to another within the system,” said archdiocesan superintendent of schools Nicholas M. Wolsonovich.

 

Colleges get high marks

Catholic universities top Midwest list

Catholic colleges and universities across the country once again received top grades in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of the nation’s best colleges.

As in previous years, Catholic colleges had their best standings among regional universities and they topped the lists in the North and Midwest regions.

 

Bishops back effort by FCC to make stations tape shows

A representative of the U.S. bishops said the bishops back a Federal Communications Commission proposal to compel radio and TV stations to keep tapes of what they’ve broadcast in case citizens make complaints against them for airing indecent material.

“The current procedure for indecency complaints, which puts the initial burden on listeners and viewers to obtain a transcript from the broadcaster of the program at issue but does not require the broadcaster to provide it when requested by the listener or viewer, inhibits the appropriate enforcement of indecency rules,” said Katherine Grincewich, assistant general counsel to the U.S. bishops, in testimony Aug. 27.

 

 

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