News Briefs
By Catholic News Service
U.S.
Redemptorists to conduct blessing in August for arthritis sufferers
DENVER (CNS) -- Redemptorists across the United States will conduct a "Blessing for Arthritics" Aug. 1 after all Masses at parishes and retreat centers staffed by the order. The date was chosen because it is the feast day of the Redemptorists' founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori, who is also the patron saint of those who suffer from arthritis. St. Alphonsus himself suffered from arthritis the last 40 years of his life, which left him hunched forward and confined to a wheelchair. "We hope this is the beginning of an annual tradition that brings people to our churches to ask for the blessing and intercession of our great saint on his feast day and to beseech our Father in heaven to grant these suffering souls deliverance from their pains," said a July 30 statement from Redemptorist Father Thomas Picton, superior of the order's Denver province. Father Picton added it was the first time to his knowledge that such a nationwide blessing event had taken place. The blessing is intended for people who suffer from arthritis, fibromyalgia and other serious physical conditions, and is open to all. Prayer cards will be distributed as part of the blessing ceremony. A list of participating parishes and retreat centers is available at www.redemptoristsdenver.org by clicking on the "Blessing" banner. The site also offers a prayer card and a "virtual blessing" for those unable to attend in person.
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Church's work on disabilities helped bring about law marking 20th year
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When the Americans with Disabilities Act was being debated in the U.S. Senate 20 years ago, excerpts from the pastoral statement on people with disabilities issued by the U.S. bishops 12 years earlier were read on the Senate floor in support of its passage. "It is not enough merely to affirm the rights of people with disabilities," the document says. "We must actively work to make them real in the fabric of modern society. Recognizing that individuals with disabilities have a claim to our respect because they are persons, because they share in the one redemption of Christ, and because they contribute to our society by their activity within it, the church must become an advocate for and with them." For most of her adult life, Jan Benton has been doing just that. But the executive director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability is not sure the church's message is getting out to those who need to hear it most. "Our challenge and our goal is to have people know we exist so they know that the church does care," Benton told Catholic News Service during a July 13 interview in her Washington office. "That's the painful thing, when people say, 'I never heard of you.' We don't want them to think the church is not there for them. We want them to know the church is there and has many opportunities" for them.
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Daughter with disabilities took Washington woman down unexpected path
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When her daughter Kate was born with a complex set of significant disabilities known as CHARGE syndrome, Peg Kolm believed that the only things the church had to offer her could be summarized by the "three B's -- they would baptize her, they would bury her and they would put us at the back of the church." But then she discovered the U.S. bishops' 1978 pastoral statement on people with disabilities, which she describes as "very powerful in its vision of the church as a community that welcomes everyone, one flock under a single Shepherd." Kolm's experiences finding a place for her daughter Kate, now 19, led to her current posts as director of the Office for Ministry with Persons with Disabilities in the Archdiocese of Washington and development director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. She and her husband, Rich, are parents of "two great kids -- one very tall and one very short," Kolm said. Richard, 22, recently graduated from college, while Kate faces "enormous challenges," including vision and hearing impairments, heart problems and difficulties with eating and speaking. CHARGE syndrome is a rare genetic disease named for its various effects -- coloboma of the eye, heart defects, atresia of the nasal choanae, retardation of growth and/or development, genital and/or urinary abnormalities and ear abnormalities and deafness. Children such as Kate "never existed before" the past two or three decades, because they owe their survival to new technologies, Kolm noted. But they and other people with disabilities "force community," she added. "Kate has forced us to be in a community we didn't expect."
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Venture aims to strengthen relationship with Catholic schools, colleges
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (CNS) -- The Rochester-based Catholic Education Foundation, an organization that provides scholarships nationwide to Catholic high school students, has announced a new effort to expand and strengthen the relationships that Catholic elementary and secondary schools have with Catholic colleges. The venture is a joint effort with the Cardinal Newman Society, a national organization based in Virginia that works "to help renew and strengthen Catholic identity in Catholic higher education," as its mission statement says. One issue the new venture plans to address is how Catholic colleges can support the work of Catholic elementary and secondary schools through a program called "Interdependence Project," which would pair Catholic high schools and colleges. The venture also is initiating a program to help Catholic grade schools and high schools assess their Catholic identity. To facilitate this, the Catholic Education Foundation said it will offer a diagnostic tool called the "Catholic School Identity Assessment" to help them spot their strengths and weaknesses. The foundation's announcement also said another aspect of the venture will be an awareness campaign to educate the public "on how many tax dollars Catholic schools save the government-supported education system." The campaign will include bumper stickers and signs that can be displayed in front of schools to indicate the amount of money the school saved taxpayers per year. The foundation said the campaign's ultimate goal is to see legislation passed to provide vouchers, tax credits or "some other instrument to reduce the financial burden" on parents who want to send their children to Catholic schools.
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Church-run dining room on the border serves deportees
NOGALES, Mexico (CNS) -- Victor Hernandez Martinez, a blacksmith with his own business near Seattle, was on his third day at the "Centro para Atenci>n a los Migrantes Deportados," the Center to Help Deported Migrants, a few hundred yards inside the Mexican border from Arizona. In fluent English, Hernandez explained how he had been stopped by U.S. immigration inspectors at the border at Tijuana as he returned home from a trip to his native state of Veracruz in east-central Mexico for his great-grandfather's funeral. Instead of being at work in Seattle, Hernandez was among about 75 men having a hearty breakfast at the "comedor," or dining room, run by the Kino Border Initiative, a collaborative effort of the Jesuit provinces of California and Mexico, the Diocese of Tucson, Ariz., the Archdiocese of Hermosillo, Mexico, Jesuit Refugee Service and the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist. This day in mid-July, several of the men at breakfast had similar stories of being kept out or deported from their longtime homes in the United States. Abisai Castro pulled out his ID card from Healdsburg High School in California and explained that he was partway through his junior year there two years ago when he was arrested for investigation of a fight at school. He was never charged over the fight, but while he was detained, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers took him away after it was discovered he was in the country illegally. He was brought to the United States by his parents at the age of 8 from Oaxaca in southern Mexico but had not been back in nine years. Now 19, Castro said after he was deported he tried to make a go of it with his uncles in Oaxaca but could not fit in or find work, so he started for his home in California. He got caught by the Border Patrol in Arizona after three and a half nights spent walking across the desert, part of a group of 24 people. His family had promised to pay a smuggler $2,000 to get him to California. "I had one more night to go," he said.
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WORLD
Pope begins writing last volume on life of Jesus
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI is dedicating his holiday to writing the third and final volume in his series on the life of Jesus, which will cover his infancy and childhood. The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, told journalists July 23 that just a few days after the pope arrived at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo July 7, he already showed signs of being fully "restored and beaming." The pope "immediately began to dedicate himself to reading and studying which, even though it's demanding, it doesn't tire him out," he said. "It's clear, therefore, how important it is for him to finish this great project begun years ago," he added. Pope Benedict started writing the first volume of the work during his summer vacation in 2003, two years before he was elected pope. After his election, the pope said in that volume's preface that he used all of his free time to complete the book, which was published in the spring of 2007 and covered Jesus' life from his baptism to his transfiguration. In the United States, the English translation was published by Doubleday. The pope handed his editors the final draft of the second volume of his book, "Jesus of Nazareth," in May. Father Lombardi said it's not expected to be on sale in bookstores until next spring since the work must be translated and published in different languages.
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After EU mandate, Vatican euro coins are put into public circulation
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For the first time since the Vatican adopted the euro currency in 2002, the Vatican has begun to put some of its coins into public circulation. However, the likelihood that Rome visitors will find coins depicting Pope Benedict XVI is still slim since storekeepers only within the walls of Vatican City are distributing them. Two million 50-cent coins minted in 2010 were earmarked for public circulation after representatives of the Vatican and the European Union signed an agreement in Brussels in December. The accord allowed the Vatican to more than double the monetary value of the coins it issues, but also required the Vatican to put a large chunk of its coins into circulation. For years, the vast majority of Vatican euro coins were sold as sets to collectors for 30 euros ($38) each, although some Vatican employees had an opportunity to buy rolls of the coins at face value. The annual release of the Vatican coins was marked by long lines of collectors waiting to buy them and by disappointed customers who found the stocks exhausted in just a few days. Under the terms of last year's agreement, instead of being limited to a total annual coin value of just under 1.1 million euros, the Vatican will be authorized to mint coins worth up to 2.3 million euros with the expectation that nearly half of those coins are put into public circulation. In mid-July, Vatican City stores and businesses -- such as the gas station, post office, pharmacy and grocery store -- began distributing 50-cent coins with their change, with a limit of two coins per customer. Only the 50-cent coin will be put into public circulation, said media reports.
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Chilean bishops draw criticism for proposal to pardon inmates
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNS) -- Chile's Catholic bishops drew sharp criticism for proposing that the government mark the country's bicentennial by pardoning or reducing sentences for some inmates in its overcrowded prisons. Opposition politicians and relatives of people who were killed or disappeared during the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet said the proposal amounted to amnesty for military officers convicted of human rights violations. Relatives of victims protested outside the presidential palace July 21 as the bishops delivered a five-page letter to President Sebastian Pinera calling for a "more humane" prison and criminal justice system. "We cannot have inhumane prisons or continue to allow overcrowding, with all the problems it brings. These are human beings like us. They have committed misdemeanors and crimes, but we cannot deny them the dignity God bestowed on them when they were in the womb," the bishops wrote. Noting that the country's prison system "is often a more violent and more dehumanizing environment than the places that fostered the criminal behavior," the bishops called for measures to ensure "the rehabilitation and reinsertion into society of those who have caused harm to society by their crimes." The letter urged the president to reduce the sentences of inmates over age 70 and mothers with children under age 18, allow seriously ill inmates to finish their sentences outside prison, and pardon terminally ill prisoners. They noted, however, that such measures need not apply to prisoners convicted of serious crimes or considered a danger to society.
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Rome Diocese calls for active gay priests to go, stop sullying church
ROME (CNS) -- In the wake of an undercover video and news report documenting priests in Rome engaged in homosexual acts, the Rome Diocese has called for priests engaged in "unworthy" behavior to leave the priesthood and stop sullying the reputation of the vast majority of honorable ministers. While the diocese also condemned the article for its overall aim of discrediting the church, it did say it "is committed to rigorously prosecute, according to church norms, any behavior unworthy of priestly life." On July 23 the Italian weekly newsmagazine, Panorama, published a lengthy dossier detailing the sexual behavior of some priests residing in Rome. A journalist and a practicing homosexual male accomplice went undercover with a hidden video camera to several popular gay night spots in Rome for 20 days. The magazine said it discovered "numerous cases" of priests who were "perfectly integrated in the capital's gay scene." The article focused on three priests, two Italian and one French, who, based on the video footage, were seen "dancing half-naked" and engaged in sexual acts. A written statement issued July 23 by the Diocese of Rome said "the news article's aim is clear: to create scandal and defame all priests, based on the declaration of one of those interviewed who said '98 percent of the priests I know are homosexual,' to discredit the church and -- on the flipside -- put pressure on that part of the church they have defined as 'intransigent, which struggles to ignore the reality' of homosexual priests."
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Sudan's bishops decry lack of progress toward Jan. 9 referendum
JUBA, Sudan (CNS) -- With less than six months to go before the Jan. 9 referendum on the future of Southern Sudan as an independent nation, Sudan's bishops have expressed concern that there is not enough time to finish preparations. In a statement released July 22 at the end of a weeklong meeting, Sudan's bishops called upon Sudanese officials in the country's northern and southern regions to ensure that the referendum for Southern Sudan -- and a separate one for Abyei -- take place "on time, in a free and fair manner, and that the outcomes are recognized and respected." They said many people throughout the country have expressed fear that the warring factions that signed the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement have not made the referendum a priority and "that transparency and inclusiveness are lacking." The referendum for southern Sudan will determine if the largely Christian and animist South, with its significant oil deposits, will secede from the Islamic North. Observers consider the referendum more important for Sudan's future than April's elections for national and regional offices. "If unity is an option, we must understand what kind of unity we are speaking of," said the bishops, who noted that, in the multicultural country, "one entity still dominates and imposes itself on others in an oppressive manner, at every level."
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PEOPLE
National leaders say spirituality a key component of Catholic Daughters
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Libby Ramirez, who just completed two years as the national regent of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas, and her successor, Joanne Tomassi, said that beyond all the worthwhile programs members carry out, spirituality is the most important part of the organization. "We cannot achieve what we achieve as an organization without having God's power within us to do it," said Tomassi, who is from St. Pete Beach, Fla. She was inducted into office to succeed Ramirez as the new national regent during the 53rd biennial national convention of the Catholic Daughters, held in Buffalo, N.Y., July 14-18. It is one of the oldest and largest organizations of Catholic women in the Americas. Both women spoke to Catholic News Service in telephone interviews July 20 about their years in the organization, why they belong and their respective goals for national office. "This has been a very successful two years," said Ramirez, who is from Victoria, Texas. "I was very blessed to have a tremendous board to work with. We all (the national board) have worked hard together as a team." Tomassi and Ramirez are not strangers to each other. Tomassi worked alongside Ramirez for the past two years as national regent-elect to help run the Catholic Daughters and to prepare herself for holding the office for the next two years. Following the convention, there is a 30-day transition period during which Ramirez will help Tomassi assume her responsibilities.
Copyright (c) 2010 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops