August 7, 2006VOL. 44, NO. 14Oakland, CA

SJND scholarships
Seven incoming freshmen at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda will receive $10,000 in scholarships during their four years at the school. They are, from left, Francesca Zambrano, St. Joseph Elementary, Alameda; Nkeirka Umeh, St. Felicitas School, San Leandro; Jonathan Kachiu, St. Leander School, San Leandro; Oliver Dam, St. Barnabas School, Alameda; Kelley Villa, St. Barnabas School; Christopher Duong, St. Joseph School. Not pictured is Katherine Riley, St. Philip Neri School, Alameda. Standing with them are Father Richard Danyluk, pastor of St. Joseph Basilica Parish (left), and Anthony Aiello, SJND principal.

A gift from the Kmhmu Kan Souriya, a lay leader of the diocesan Kmhmu Catholic Community, gives a priestly stole to Father Weerasak “Lee” Chompoochan (center) at the end of his first Mass at St. Paul Church in San Pablo. Redemptorist Father Don MacKinnon, director of the Kmhmu/Laotian Pastoral Center (right) and members of the Kmhmu Community join in the presentation. Father Chompoochan, who was ordained May 20, is the first Thai native ordained for the Oakland Diocese. Prior to his ordination, he ministered in the Kmhmu community, with whom he developed a close bond.

Ask and you receive

Father Thomas Mathew, a Salesian priest from India, spent the month of June at St. Raymond Parish in Dublin. When asked by the parish court of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas if they could be of any help to him at his home parish, he expressed a need for altar vestments.

CDA member Reina Whitney took on the project, asking parishes for used vestments. Answering the appeal were Msgr. John McCracken, pastor at St. Anne Parish in Walnut Creek, Father John Direen, pastor at St. Andrew-St. Joseph Parish in Oakland, and Father Wayne Campbell, pastor at St. Felicitas Parish in San Leandro. Father Mathew packed a suitcase full of chasubles, albs, stoles, and countless altar linens.

The donations he could not take were sent to churches destroyed last year during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A truck left St. Raymond Parish last month filled with donations for the churches and other victims of the disaster.

Poverty pilgrimage

Three young men who are members of the newly-formed religious association, Servants of Christ Jesus, visited Mission San Jose during their month-long poverty pilgrimage to the California missions. They traveled from San Francisco to San Diego without money, relying on Divine Providence and the generosity of others for their transportation, food and lodging.

Brother Paul Kostka, a 21-year-old native of Houston, Texas, founded the Servants under the guidance of Bishop R. Daniel Conlon of the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio, in 2004. Traveling with him were Brother John Ignatius Little and David Rydberg. Their primary ministry is evangelization of students.

Voices for peace

Oakland’s St. Augustine Parish is inviting parishioners and parish choir members throughout the diocese to join in a choir that will sing the Faure “Requiem” as a Mass of Remembrance for Those Who Have Died through Violence on Nov. 5 at the church.

An organizational meeting/informal voice placements will take place at St. Augustine Church, 400 Alcatraz Ave., on Aug. 21 at 7 p.m. Rehearsals will take place Monday nights from 7 – 9:30 p.m.

Jim Gilman, director of music ministries at St. Augustine, will conduct this community-
based choir as a response to the violence taking place around the world and the continuing violence on the streets of Oakland.

Chorus members will be asked to pay $20 to help defray costs, plus $10 for the music, which the participants can keep. Donations and ads in the event program will make up the rest of the budget. Those who wish to donate money or sponsor an ad should contact Susan Taylor at (925) 398-8433 or suzka@comcast.net.

Parishes under microscope

Motivated by legal challenges and pastoral concerns about the place of parishes in the Catholic Church, the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley recently convened experts from the fields of civil and ecclesiastical law and theology to explore the nature and mission of the parish. The colloquium took place in Chicago, July 17 – 20, with Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, as one of the speakers.

Participants discussed what is at stake for the Church and society in light of court actions threatening seizure of parish assets or the closure of parishes. DSPT plans to post abstracts of the presentations on its website, www.dspt.edu, by mid-September. The proceedings of the entire conference will be published in “Chicago Studies” beginning in the summer of 2007.

Around the Parishes

Parishioners, public officials and the San Leandro community can see for themselves how “Renovation Revival” at St. Leander Parish is progressing during an open house Aug. 14 at the parish’s Ryan O’Connell Hall at 575 W. Estudillo Ave., beginning at 7 p.m. The parish began a three-year fundraising program last September to bring its facilities up-to-date. The first phase -- replacing the floor of the church, refinishing the pews, and reupholstering the kneelers -- is completed. Further improvements, including the painting of the church and seismic retrofitting of the primary school, are underway.

Congratulations go to Matt Wolfe, Darin Grandfield, Nick Tehero, Arturo Lopez, and Alex Potts, members from the Boy Scouts of America Troop 903, sponsored by St. Michael Parish in Livermore, who recently achieved their Eagle Scout rank, a feat reach by only five percent of all Boy Scouts. The five scouts planned, assembled materials and volunteers, and coordinated their service projects to benefit different segments of the community. They restored swimming pool bleachers for Granada High School, removed dangerous barbed wire fencing and posts in Mt. Diablo State Park, designed and built a storage unit at Joe Mitchell School, restored a hillside and judging stand at Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area, and constructed a storage shed for Granada High School’s consumer and family studies department.

Members of the Young Ladies Institute #166 at All Saints Parish in Hayward recently hosted the Golden Jubilee Burse Presentation at the parish church for districts 2, 3 and 4. Bishop Allen Vigneron celebrated the Mass with Father Helmut Richter, pastor at Good Shepherd Parish in Pittsburg, and Father Declan Dean, parochial vicar at All Saints Parish, as concelebrants. YLI representatives presented Bishop Vigneron with $10,820 for education of diocesan seminarians.

For a number of years St. Isidore Parish in Danville has supported a mission and missionary in Baja, California, including a breakfast program that feeds over 120 children who otherwise would go hungry. The parish also helped build a chapel and cafeteria. On Sept. 24 St. Isidore will hold its annual Adopted Mission Project with a 12:15 p.m. Mariachi Mass and a raffle to benefit the community of St. Joseph the Worker in La Paz.

Members of Our Lady Queen of the World Parish in Bay Point, the first parish established in the newly created Oakland Diocese in 1962, will celebrate its 44th birthday on Aug. 20 with a multi-cultural Mass at 11:30 a.m. A highlight of the celebration will be the veneration of a statue of Our Lady Queen of the World presented to the parish by Bishop Floyd Begin, the diocese’s founding bishop.

The Mothers’ Group at St. Bonaventure Parish in Concord celebrated the gift of life by sponsoring a special Mass for expectant mothers.

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Around the Schools

Suzanne Millward of Crockett, who recently finished her junior year at Vallejo’s St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School, took part in the Gillette Economics for Leaders program at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont. The week-long program focused on leadership training and economics.

Gabriella Welch, who recently graduated from St. Raymond School in Dublin, won a $300 scholarship awarded annually by Court #2057 of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas at St. Raymond Parish. Welch will attend Bishop O’Dowd High School this fall.

Johana Pena, a graduate of St. Anthony School in Oakland, has received the $500 Marty Mart Scholarship, presented twice annually by the diocesan Catholic Youth Organization (CYO). The scholarship honors the late Mary Mart, longtime CYO associate director who died in 2002. Pena, who has been active in CYO volleyball and basketball for a number of years, will attend St. Elizabeth High School in Oakland this fall.

Kathleen Murphy, principal at Corpus Christi School in Piedmont, was one of 20 principals from Catholic schools around the country to attend the Principals Academy, sponsored by the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) in Washington, D.C., June 28 – July 2.

Three cheers to the marching band at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda who stepped proudly in the Alameda Mayor’s Fourth of July Parade. Not only did they entertain more than 20,000 spectators, the students won first place “school bands transported” in the parade. The 15 musicians, ranging from sophomores to graduates, played a Latin mambo from “I Love Lucy,” a Sousa march and the Notre Dame Fight Song and the singers belted selections from the musical “All That Jazz” and “Rock and Roll is Here to Stay.” They also led the crowd in the Pilot cheer.

Twenty students at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland raised more than $5,500 for the 20th Annual San Francisco AIDS Walk. Seniors Kelsey Walker and Allison McManis, who served as co-leaders of Team Life-Line, secured about $2,000 and $1,400 in donations respectively.

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Among the Religious

The Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose have officially joined more 800 women’s religious orders throughout the world who have pledged to work for the eradication of the growing epidemic of international trafficking of women, children and men.

The Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters, whose members minister in the Oakland Diocese, elected Sister Patricia Mulcahey as their new prioress during their General Chapter last month. Sister Mary Ellen Green, a former director of the Jesuits Volunteer Corps in Oakland (1990-95), is one of the newly elected members of their Council. Their terms extend through June 2011.

Dominican Father David K. O’Rourke has been temporarily assigned to serve as parochial administrator at St. Anthony Parish in Oakley, effective July 10. He remains as administrator at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Point Richmond. Oakley’s pastor, Father Bernardino Andrade, retired last month.

The following priests have been appointed parochial vicars: Father Paulson Mundanmani to St. Mary Parish in Walnut Creek, effective Aug. 1; Father Anthony Vazhappily to Church of the Assumption in San Leandro, effective Aug. 15; Father Kenneth Sales to Immaculate Heart of Mary in Brentwood, effective Sept. 1; and Father Jesus Hernandez to St. Louis Bertrand in Oakland, effective Oct. 1.

Deacon Gabriel Hernandez has been assigned to Mary Help of Christians Mission in Oakland, effective July 1.

Father Jeffrey Keyes, pastor at St. Edward Parish in Newark, attended the Sacred Music Colloquium held in June at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

The colloquium featured a world-class faculty, daily choir rehearsals, lectures on sacred music, and daily Masses with music from two millennia of Catholic faith.

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Names, News, Notes

Congratulations to the following couples who recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries: Lee and Fernando Viteri, members at St. Leo Parish in Oakland; Patricia and Carroll Potter, St. Raymond Parish in Dublin: Marrianne and Floyd Hawkins and Deanna and Jack Sanders of the Catholic Community of Pleasanton.

SPRED (Special Religious Education Department) will meet Sept. 1 – 3 at San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville for its 29th Labor Day Retreat. Individuals interested in attending this retreat as a helper Catechist are invited to attend the orientation session on Aug. 22 at the SPRED Model Training Center, 3705 Dorisa Ave., in Oakland, from 7 – 9:30 p.m. For more information, contact the SPRED office at (510) 635-7252, spredoakdiocese@igc.org or www.oakdiocese.org/spred.

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; fa x (510) 893-4734; e-mail: cmcclish@oakdiocese.org. Deadline for Sept. 4 issue: Aug. 23.

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