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January
8, 2007 
VOL.
45, NO. 1Oakland,
CA
 |
New
bishop for Monterey |
 |
Bishop
to seek presidency |
Jewish
group pledges to Catholic schools
BALTIMORE (CNS) -- A Baltimore-based Jewish foundation is pledging $3.5
million to Catholic schools in Baltimore in an effort to boost enrollment
and attract even more financial support for urban-based Catholic education.
Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore and Donn Weinberg of the Harry
and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation announced that the foundation would donate
$500,000 in 2006 and $1 million for the next three years to benefit at-risk
students in 17 Catholic elementary/middle schools and three high schools.
The grant is contingent on the Archdiocese of Baltimore finding matching
grants from other donors.
Jesuit
among Newsweek’s people to watch in 2007
NEW YORK (CNS) -- Newsweek magazine has named Jesuit Father John P. Foley,
president of the national Cristo Rey Network of Catholic high schools,
among “the people to watch in the year ahead.” In 1996 Father
Foley opened Cristo Rey Jesuit High School as a college prep school in
Chicago’s predominantly Hispanic Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood,
which has the city’s least educated population.
In collaboration with more than 100 area corporations, the school operates
a work/study program that has every student working five days every four
weeks and attending classes 15 days in that time.
Archbishop
decries raids at meat plants in six states
DENVER (CNS) -- The archbishop of Denver decried the immigration raids
conducted at meatpacking plants in six states Dec. 12 by federal authorities
to arrest workers in the country illegally who were suspected of participating
in an identity theft scam.
“The mass arrest of unauthorized workers in Colorado and across
the country this week once again puts a human face on the flaws in our
immigration system, a system that needs immediate and very serious reform,”
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said Dec. 13. The Catholic Church supports
the law and respects law enforcement officers, he said, but Catholics
must question why the federal action occurred on the feast of Our Lady
of Guadalupe. Many of the affected workers are Hispanic.
Main
Rome train station dedicated to John Paul II
ROME (CNS) -- Honoring the late Pope John Paul II as a man of dialogue
and encounter, the city of Rome and the Italian state railway system have
dedicated Rome’s Termini train station to his memory. The newly
refurbished “Termini-John Paul II Station” was formally inaugurated
Dec. 23. Some 480,000 people a day -- 150 million each year -- pass through
the station.
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the papal vicar of Rome, told the crowd gathered
for the ceremony that it made perfect sense to dedicate a train station
to the memory of a pope who traveled so much.
Vatican’s
U.N. mission to get diplomatic privileges
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In the final hours of the 109th Congress, the House
and Senate passed a bill that would let President George W. Bush grant
diplomatic privileges and immunities to the
Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations.
The Holy See is not a member of the United Nations, but its permanent
observer status, held since 1964, entitles it to participate in General
Assembly debates, have its communications issued and circulated as official
documents of the assembly, and co-sponsor draft resolutions and decisions
that refer to the Holy See.
Portland
to pay $75 million to abuse claimants
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- The Archdiocese of Portland will not need to sell
off parish or school property under terms of a $75 million settlement
between the archdiocese and almost 150 sex abuse claimants. Among the
resolved cases is the $135 million suit that in 2004 pushed the archdiocese
to become the first Catholic archdiocese or diocese in the nation to file
for bankruptcy. At one point last year, abuse suits against the Archdiocese
of Portland added up to more than $500 million.
Collectible
Swiss Guard stickers hit market
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Move over baseball players and soccer stars -- an
Italian publisher is hoping to hook young collectors on the Swiss Guards.
To honor the guards in their 500th year of service to the popes, the publisher
has released a deluxe collector’s album with 250 different stickers.
“The Guardian Angels of the Pope” is heavy on images and light
on text, but the brief explanations of each sticker are provided in both
Italian and English. The images used were chosen and the explanations
written by Giovanni Morelli, the retired Vatican Library employee who
served as researcher and curator of the 2006 Vatican exhibition on the
history of the Swiss Guards.
Warsaw
prelate wasn’t a spy, Polish bishops say
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican and the Polish bishops are convinced
Warsaw’s new Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus was not a spy for the
secret police under Poland’s former communist regime, the Vatican
said.
The Polish Catholic Church has been rocked for months by revelations that
some members of the clergy cooperated with the secret services of the
country’s old communist regimes. Rumors had been circulating for
weeks that Archbishop Wielgus, formerly bishop of Plock, had been among
the collaborators.
Priest
might stand trial for ‘dirty war’ crimes
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNS) -- An Argentine state prosecutor has recommended
that a priest who served as a police chaplain stand trial for his alleged
role in disappearances, torture and other human rights violations during
the country’s “dirty war.”
Father Cristian von Wernich will be the first priest to face trial for
human rights violations committed during the 1976-83 dictatorship, in
which an estimated 30,000 people died or disappeared. Witnesses accuse
Father von Wernich of being involved in the organization of kidnappings
and death squads.
Davenport
to sell properties to ease debt
DAVENPORT, Iowa (CNS) -- Three Davenport diocesan properties -- including
the house that Bishop Martin J. Amos recently moved into -- were to go
on sale as part of the diocese’s bankruptcy proceedings. A fourth
property, the diocese’s St. Vincent Center headquarters, will be
sold later. The property must be sold to compensate the diocese’s
creditors, victims of clergy sexual abuse. The bishop’s house, a
duplex, has an assessed value of $196,260.
Crowd
assaults Indian archbishop, priests
BANGALORE, India (CNS) -- A crowd of 1,000 people shouted anti-Christian
slogans and some of them assaulted Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore
Dec. 18 when he visited a church and a school attacked the previous night.
The mob pulled the archbishop and two priests from their car and verbally
abused them.
The archbishop came to visit two Claretian priests who were attacked by
alleged Hindu fanatics the previous night. The attackers also damaged
St. Thomas Church and St. Claret School, which the Claretians manage.
President
of Xavier U. given Freedom Medal
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Norman Francis, the president of Xavier University
in New Orleans for 39 years, was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
the nation’s highest civilian honor, during a Dec. 15 White House
ceremony. The longtime president of the nation’s only historically
black Catholic university was praised for being “a man of deep intellect
and compassion and character.”
President George W. Bush described Francis as the longest-serving university
president in the United States and someone who has dedicated his life
to education. He noted that Francis, who received his undergraduate degree
at Xavier, was the first African-American to graduate from the Loyola
University College of Law, also in New Orleans.
Better
auditing urged for Catholic parishes
VILLANOVA, Pa. (CNS) -- More than four out of five U.S. dioceses have
experienced embezzlement or other misuse of parish funds within the past
five years, but only two-fifths have formal written fraud policies, two
Villanova University researchers said. Villanova business school professors
Robert West and Charles Zech reported that according to a national survey
of chief diocesan financial officers 21 percent said the diocese “seldom
or never” audits parish finances and only 3 percent said such audits
are conducted every year.
The researchers recommended that all parishes undergo internal audits
every year, supplemented by an external audit at least once every three
years. They recommended all parishes and high schools submit financial
data to the diocese at least annually and preferably more often.
