Issue of December 19, 2004

UPDATE

Cardinal’s School Fund established

The Cardinal’s School Fund has been established by the Archdiocese of Chicago to help archdiocesan schools face financial challenges.

The tax-deductible fund is aimed at generating donations from everyone who understands the value of a Catholic education, especially those who attended Catholic schools. Contributions are critical at this time because increasing costs jeopardize the future of many Catholic schools.

“I really don’t want to announce the closings of any more Catholic schools,” said Cardinal George. “We need help to keep our excellent Catholic schools available to children today and tomorrow.”

 

Pledge religious freedom in Iraq

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari thanked Pope John Paul II for the help he always has given the Iraqi people, and he pledged that the country’s new government would promote full religious freedom.

The foreign minister met Pope John Paul II Dec. 13, exactly one year after U.S. troops captured Saddam Hussein and less than a week after an Armenian Catholic Church and a Chaldean Catholic bishop’s residence were damaged in an attack by armed men.

Zebari also met with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state. “In the course of the meetings, the situations currently existing in Iraq and in the Middle East in general were reviewed,” said a Dec. 13 statement from Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman. Zebari, he said, assured the pope of “the commitment of his government to promote religious freedom and, particularly, the defense of the Christian communities.”

 

NEWS

Archdiocese’s annual report

shows assets, expenses up

While the value of capital assets in the Archdiocese of Chicago grew during fiscal 2004, rising operating expenses continued to outstrip revenue growth for both parishes and the archdiocesan Pastoral Center, according to Thomas M. Brennan, director of financial services.

The archdiocese’s 374 parishes finished the fiscal year June 30 with $49.5 million more in expenses than in revenue, according to the annual financial report-a deficit that is $13.5 million more than last year’s. Parishes and schools took in about $552.9 million, and received a total of $13.5 million in grants from the archdiocese, while spending $616 million.

 

A church without borders

Bishop Manz tells migrants the church cares for them

As Father Pedro Garcia, pastor of St. Ann Catholic Mission in Naranja, accompanied a group of Catholic farmworker advocates through southern Florida, he repeatedly uttered the phrase, “That used to be farmland.”

Auxiliary Bishop John R. Manz of Chicago, the U.S. bishops’ liaison to the Migrant Farmworker Apostolate, was part of the delegation on a weeklong visit to Florida farm communities. He observed that in another decade there might not be any farmland in the area south of Miami.

 

A year later, parishes adjusting well to changes

Leaders say new GIRM has added reverence to Mass

The last year has seen significant changes to the way some people experience the celebration of the Eucharist in their parishes. It is just over one year since the Archdiocese of Chicago implemented the revised General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM), the collection of norms and guidelines for the celebration of the Mass. In the Archdiocese of Chicago the revised norms were implemented on the first Sunday of Advent, November 2003.

Many parishes have worked hard over the past year and, as with most things, implementation has gone smoothly in some parishes and in others it has needed more time and patience. In most parishes the implementation has been an opportunity for the whole community to reflect on and deepen their understanding of the Eucharist and its place in the life of the parish and in the lives of individual Catholics.

 

Faith is the light of Advent

Season of light challenges faithful to live in love

The challenge of Advent is not to prepare for the Christ Child born 2,000 years ago, or even for Christ to come again at the end of time, Father Richard Fragomeni told members of the First Friday Club Dec. 3.

The challenge of Advent is to allow the light of faith to illuminate your heart, so that you see that Christ is already here, and to surrender yourself to that faith, Fragomeni said.

 

Bishop Gregory to head Atlanta

At a press conference Dec. 9, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, just named head of the Atlanta Archdiocese, said that he was “pleased to become a loyal citizen of Atlanta and a proud resident of the state of Georgia.”

“I enter this new assignment eager to learn about the people of the archdiocese, to listen to their dreams and aspirations, and above all to encourage all of us toward a deeper love for Jesus Christ,” he said.

 

A voice for Europeans

New director brings missionary experience

The mission of the Society of the Divine Word is to spread the Gospel message worldwide. Divine Word Father Casimir Garbacz continues that mission in the Archdiocese of Chicago as the new director of the Office for European Catholics.

The office, created in the early ’90s, serves as a resource for Chicago’s large European presence. It includes all ethnicities from Europe, but the primary focus is on the 12 major groups of immigrants and descendents who have settled in and around the city. These include Albanians, Croatians, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Irish, Latvians, Lithuanians, Polish, Slovaks and Slovenians.

 

Whose feast day is it? Check the new martyrology

Three years after finishing the massive project of updating and correcting the book-length calendar of Catholic saints, the Vatican has published an even bigger, more accurate version.

The “Martyrologium Romanum” (“Roman Martyrology”) was presented to the public Dec. 4 during a conference on holiness and the complicated task of separating fact from legend when dealing with martyrs and saints who lived and died thousands of years ago and whose lives gave rise to fervent devotion and, perhaps, fanciful stories.

 

For Caviezel, acting not just a career but a calling

Although Jim Caviezel never set out to be an actor, acting has become not just a career for him, but a calling.

Caviezel has become well-known for his portrayal of Christ in “The Passion of the Christ.” He discussed his latest role in “I Am David,” his acting and his Catholic faith, in a telephone interview from Los Angeles during a short break from projects.

A winner of numerous awards at several film festivals, including best picture and audience favorite, “I Am David” opened in theaters Dec. 3.

 

Actress with Chicago roots explores death penalty in play

Television actress Marion Scherer hopes that her one-woman play, “A Prison of the Mind,” which examines capital punishment, will get people thinking and talking about the issue.

Scherer, who spent two years writing the play, has spent the last year performing it at churches and groups throughout California.

 

Vatican film festival fosters debate on spirituality

Representatives from the Vatican, the film world and academia met Dec. 1-2 to debate cinematic visions of people, their creations and their spirituality.

The Vatican’s eighth International Festival of Spiritual Cinema was to explore people’s relationship with the technology they have created. The theme was “Man-Machine Hybridization, Identity and Conscience in Post-Modern Cinema.”

 

Celebrating the roots of faith

Interfaith families come together to honor traditions

This is five-month-old Marcus McDermott’s first Christmas, and to celebrate, dad Bob’s mother invited mom Heidi’s parents to fly in from Phoenix to join the festivities.

The twist? Heidi’s parents are Jewish, so they don’t generally celebrate the birth of Christ.

“She had talked about inviting them for Hanukkah, but I explained to her that Hanukkah really isn’t that big of a holiday,” Heidi McDermott said. “I said, ‘Why don’t you invite them for Christmas?’ Because that is an important holiday for their family.”

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