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Honors
at Cuban home
A statue of Brother Jose Olallo Valdes stands
in the courtyard of an assisted living home in Camaguey, Cuba. The
facility is named after the 19th-century member of the order of
St. John of God. Brother Olallo, known for his work with the poor
and the sick, will be beatified in a Nov. 29 ceremony in Camaguey.
CNS PHOTO |
New Jesuit bishop
Bishop Cosme Hoang Van Dat waves during his
episcopal ordination ceremony in Bac Ninh, Vietnam, Oct. 7. He became
the first Jesuit bishop in Vietnam more than 400 years after Portuguese
Jesuit missionaries set foot in the country. Vietnam has 8 million
Catholics, the second largest community in Asia after the Philippines.
CNS PHOTO/REUTERS
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Refuge from anti-Christian violence
Sister Nirmala Joshi, superior general of the
Missionaries of Charity, visits a camp for displaced people operated
by her community in Janla in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. Anti-Christian
violence in the state has resulted in more than 52 deaths and more
than 20,000 mainly poor villagers taking refuge in camps and shelters.
CNS PHOTO/ANTO AKKARA |
Catholic academics: econ crisis
a good lesson
WASHINGTON (CNS) — The current economic crisis has been a hot topic
in leading business schools at Catholic universities across the United
States. Heads of master’s programs in business at a number of Catholic
universities see the market meltdown as a valuable occasion to teach their
students the consequences of imprudent business decisions.
Christopher Puto, dean of the University of St. Thomas’ Opus College
of Business in Minneapolis, said, “There are powerful lessons here
on the issues of greed, selfishness and the need for sound moral judgment
that offer great insight for young people at the start of their careers.
“We may be able to use this to guide the development of a new class
of business leaders who genuinely understand that profit and the common
good are not mutually exclusive ends,” he said.
Pope canonizes four new saints at St. Peter’s
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI canonized four new saints,
including the first native-born saint from India, where Christians recently
have come under attack from Hindu gangs.
During the Oct. 12 ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, the pope declared
sainthood for: Alphonsa Muttathupandathu, a nun from southwestern India
who was known for her holiness during a lifetime of suffering; Narcisa
de Jesus Martillo Moran, a 19th-century Ecuadorian known for her deep
prayer and penitence; Gaetano Errico, an Italian priest who founded the
Congregation of Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in
the 19th century; and Maria Bernarda Butler, a Swiss nun who founded the
Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary, Help of Sinners.
With these canonizations, Pope Benedict has created 18 new saints in his
pontificate of three and a half years. His predecessor, Pope John Paul
II, presided over the canonization of more than 450 new saints.
Creativity key to needs of Hispanic Catholics
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Creative approaches that don’t fit into
the Church’s usual way of operating must be the key to meeting the
pastoral needs of Hispanics, the Church’s fastest growing segment,
according to the keynote speaker at a symposium at Georgetown University.
Training of the Church’s lay and ordained leaders needs to be rethought,
said Jesuit Father Allan Figueroa Deck, director of the Secretariat of
Cultural Diversity in the Church at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
An American Church steeped in European traditions needs to be open to
ways of operating that may seem unfamiliar to its current leaders but
that resonate better with people whose roots are in Mexico, Central or
South America, he said.
Greensburg Diocese closes 14 parishes
GREENSBURG, Pa. (CNS) — Fourteen parishes will close and two others
will merge into one new parish by Oct. 30 under a plan announced by Greensburg
Bishop Lawrence E. Brandt. In addition, 26 parishes will begin a new or
modified partnership arrangement in which one priest provides pastoral
care and administration for two or more parishes. Citing the aging and
declining numbers of priests and parishioners, the bishop explained the
diocese faced moving from a “historical model” to a “pastoral
care model” with both diocesan and religious-order clergy serving
the diocese.
Parishioners in the affected parishes were told of the decisions at Masses
Oct. 4-5. Bishop Brandt said the changes will allow the diocese to better
position priests in parishes where the populations are growing.
Quake response shows growth in Chinese Church
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (CNS) — The Chinese Catholic Church’s response
after the May earthquake in Sichuan province helps show the growth of
the Church and offers possibilities for how Catholics can grow in their
faith. Within days of the earthquake, Church social service centers as
well as diocesan staff and priests traveled to the area to help assess
the damage, and they collected donations and delivered relief.
That could not have happened in the 1980s, when the church began emerging
from decades of suppression, said Father John Ren Dahai, a Chinese priest
who has spent several years doing postgraduate work and independent research
in the U.S.
Catholic schools collect funds for storm victims
WASHINGTON (CNS) —The National Catholic Educational Association
has pledged to help Catholic schools and parishes as they recover from
the effects of Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav through a fundraising
program called “Child to Child Two: A Catholic Campaign to Aid Education.”
The fundraising echoes a similar program conducted after Hurricane Katrina
when Catholic school students collected $1 million for hurricane victims.
The current campaign, like the previous one, asks students in Catholic
schools and parish religious education programs to donate $1 to the recovery
efforts. Donations will be used to purchase supplies or support other
educational needs.
In the Diocese of Lake Charles, La., several Catholic churches finally
rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina were severely damaged. In the Diocese
of Beaumont, Texas, Catholic schools opened Sept. 25 after weeks of cleaning
up and drying out classrooms and common areas. In the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston,
Galveston Catholic School, projected to be without power for another three
to four months, remains closed.
Britain proposes end to Catholic monarchs ban
LONDON (CNS) — British Catholics have cautiously welcomed government
proposals to abolish a law that has banned Catholics from the throne for
more than three centuries. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ordered a review
of the British Constitution that would involve scrapping the anti-Catholic
provisions of the Act of Settlement of 1701.
The law prevents a monarch, the constitutional head of state, from either
becoming or marrying a Catholic, and those who do must either abdicate
or renounce their claim on the throne. The prohibitions apply exclusively
to Catholics.
Lord Alton of Liverpool, a Catholic member of the House of Lords, said
the proposal to abolish the act was “a welcome decision that puts
right a long-standing anomaly in the law.”
Vatican officials: greed feuled financial crisis
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The global financial crisis has been caused
in part by greed and is likely to have grave repercussions on the world’s
poor, said two Vatican officials. The Vatican’s representative to
U.N. agencies in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, told refugee experts
Oct. 7 that the crashing markets could result in greater displacement
of people and a greater uncertainty about richer countries’ ability
to protect and assist them.
“The spotlight of public opinion currently is placed on the crisis
of financial markets . . . and on the irresponsibility and greed of some
managers that led to it,” Archbishop Tomasi told the executive committee
of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
At a Vatican news conference Oct. 8, Cardinal Renato Martino, the president
of two Vatican departments that deal with migration and social justice
issues, said this crisis — like every economic crisis — hits
the poor the hardest because they have little or no margin to absorb its
effects.
Court declines to hear abortion-related cases
WASHINGTON (CNS) — On the opening day of its fall term Oct. 6, the
Supreme Court declined to hear four cases dealing with abortion or abortion-related
protest efforts. It let stand lower court rulings that: require Arizona
to issue “choose life” license plates to those who request
them; uphold a multimillion-dollar verdict against anti-abortion activists
who used “wanted” posters that identified four abortion doctors
in Oregon; reverse a Missouri Department of Corrections policy that said
prisoners could not be transported by prison authorities to have abortions,
which are paid for by the prisoners themselves; leave intact the New Jersey
Supreme Court’s ruling that an abortion doctor had no legal obligation
to advise a patient that the 6- to 8-week-old fetus she sought to abort
was “a complete, separate, unique and irreplaceable human being.”
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