February 6, 2006VOL. 44, NO. 3Oakland, CA

Young peacemakers
Deacon Michael Cantlon blesses the students at Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Fremont who received a Peacemaker Award for responding to situations peacefully, showing forgiveness, accepting other people’s differences, acting as a mediator, and performing acts of kindness or seeking justice and fairness. They are, from left, Abigail Suratos, Emily Cortez, Bianca Quiazon, Melissa Tiong, Nikki Formoso, Clayton Magsanay, Therese Benzon and Maggie Lima. Banjo Huerta also received the award.

Saint Philip Neri students Ashlyn Barkalow, Matthew Cerio, Emma Sullivan and Kayley Barkalow proudly display their green wrist bands. Donations received for the bands support the Alameda parish’s sister school in Asuchillo, El Salvador.

Students in Asuchillo, El Salvador, show off their new toothbrushes and toothpaste from parishioners of Saint Philip Neri.

Prayer in U.S. history

Catholic author James Moore will talk about his new book, “One Nation Under God: A History of Prayer in America,” at 3 p.m. on Feb. 26 at First Church of Christ, Scientist, 2619 Dwight Way in Berkeley. Moore suggests that prayer has always been intertwined with America’s cultural life, and shows how early settlers, political leaders, soldiers, artists, and ordinary Americans have turned to prayer throughout our history. Composer Peter Allen, who created a CD to accompany the book, will provide interludes of music during Moore’s talk.

The program is sponsored by Friends of First Church, Berkeley, a non-profit organization, which is working to preserve the 1910 church, a National Historic Landmark designed by architect Bernard Maybeck. A $10 donation is requested with proceeds going to the Friends Roof Fund.

Holocaust lessons

Teachers from Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School joined faculty from several other Catholic, Jewish, independent and public high schools in the Bay Area, Jan. 29, for a workshop on teaching about the Holocaust. Teachers from Bishop O’Dowd attended the Jan. 29 workshop, which was jointly sponsored the Anti-Defamation League, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and Yad Vashem, and included an overview of Jewish life before the war, a discussion of Jewish life after liberation from the death camps and the connections between more recent examples of genocide.

Around the Parishes

Two thumbs way up for the young people at St. Perpetua Parish in Lafayette for several community service projects. More than 50 teens from the parish’s youth group and Confirmation program, with their adult chaperones in tow, went to the Lafayette Convalescent Hospital during Advent and delivered holiday cards and sang carols to the residents. Several youth from the Confirmation program also contributed their time and talents to the Monument Crisis Center in Concord and others traveled to St. Anthony’s Dining Room in San Francisco to help serve 2,400 meals.

St. Anne Parish in Walnut Creek recently announced plans to place a question box in the front vestibule of the church. The parish will host “Answer Sessions” beginning March 3 from 10 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Bishop Allen Vigneron confirmed about 130 adults on Jan. 29 at St. Anthony Parish in Oakland. The newly confirmed represented some 24 parishes in the diocese.

Father George Mockel, the diocesan vicar general and former pastor of St. Agnes Parish in Concord, will celebrate the March 4 Mass at the annual Divine Mercy Adult and Youth Conference, March 3-5, at the Oakland Convention Center. Auxiliary Bishop Ignatius Wang of San Francisco will be the principal celebrant at the Mass on March 5.

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Around the Schools

St. Mary’s College in Moraga can once again admit students into its doctor of education program after the state’s accrediting body determined the campus had fixed problems that resulted in the program’s suspension last year. In response to concerns raised by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the campus addressed the shortage of faculty in the college’s educational leadership program by adding more professors to the program and adjusted the curriculum to decrease the workload of professors.

Wood Rose Academy, a private, laity-run school, has purchased its school site at 4347 Cowell Road in Concord. The site was formerly the home of Bianchi School.

Three gold stars to St. Jerome School in El Cerrito for being selected as a “te@ach Award Winning School” by Best Buy. The award recognizes schools and teachers that integrate interactive technology into the curriculum while creating fun learning experiences. Fifth grade teacher Mary Jo Mishork wrote about technology in her classroom and highlighted the school’s successful “Business Card” project. The award included a $2,500 Best Buy gift card and a PNY USB flash drive.

Congratulations go to U-Turn, a five-member band comprised of eighth graders at Our Lady of Grace School in Castro Valley, that is one of 12 finalists in the annual Battle of the Bands, Feb. 11, at the Chabot College Performing Arts Center in Hayward. The competition, sponsored for the past 42 years by the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, gives talented but undiscovered musicians of all ages an opportunity to perform in public.

Algebra students at St. Philip Neri School in Alameda recently participated in the AMC-8 (American Mathematics Competitions), a nationwide 30-problem test sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America. Seventh grader Matthew Pang was not only the highest scorer from St. Philip Neri, he also scored in the top five percent nationally.

Two thumbs way up for Sorren Lindstrom, a senior at Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School, who has been awarded a full scholarship for two classes at the San Francisco Art Institute Young Artists Summer Pre-College Program, a five-week summer arts program for students ages 16 – 18. Lindstrom is a student in Liza Dodd’s art workshop/AP studio art class at BOD.

Kudos also go to the Bishop O’Dowd High varsity women’s water polo team who captured a North Coast Section Scholastic Championship Team Award. The award is given to the top three North Coast varsity teams in each sport, according to classification/division, with the highest composite grade point average. BOD’s composite GPA was 3.72. Other schools who were recognized are Ursuline of Santa Rosa (3.69 GPA) and Piedmont High (3.67).

Over 300 students from schools around the Bay Area gathered Jan. 28 at Alameda’s St. Joseph Notre Dame High School to take part a speech and debate congress, arguing . for or against proposed legislation and resolutions. They earned points for their presentations based on delivery and content. The SJND Forensics Team consists of 30 students, half of whom are members of the National Forensics League, a speech and debate honor society.

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Among the Religious

Jeffrey Morris, whose journey in religious life included years of study in the Integral Program at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, took final vows as a Trappist monk last month at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, a town in the Sacramento valley. Morris, who graduated from St. Mary’s in 1995, now goes by the name of Brother Placid. According to an article on the college’s website, Brother Placid first felt drawn to religious life at the age of 12 when he met the archbishop of Los Angeles after attending a religious education convention and was challenged to “be a priest.”

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Names, News, Notes

Income Tax Season is here once again and Catholic Charities of the East Bay is assisting low-income wage earners in claiming their full tax benefits through the VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) Program. CCEB began offering the program Feb. 1 in Oakland (433 Jefferson St.) and Concord (3540 Chestnut Ave.). For more information contact Chi Pham at (510) 768-3161 or Wanica V. Means at wanica@cceb.org.

The Hayward Chamber of Commerce recently honored two members of the Catholic community. Michael Mahoney, CEO of St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, was named Business Person of the Year for his role in leading the hospital through a historic sale after the facility’s Kansas-based Sisters announced they were leaving the state. Cheryl Steeb, longtime English teacher at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, was selected as Educator of the Year for her many contributions in education as well as her role as a mentor to new teachers.

Got news? Share it with Around The Diocese. Send your school news, anniversaries, parish activities, individual achievements and other happenings in the Catholic community to Carrie McClish at The Catholic Voice, c/o Around The Diocese, 3014 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland, Ca 94610; phone: (510) 419-1074; fax (510) 893-4734; e-mail: cmcclish@oakdiocese.org.

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