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- Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:13:00 +0000: Archbishop Chaput: Catholic school crisis shows need for vouchers – CNA Daily News
Philadelphia, Pa., Jan 28, 2012 / 06:13 pm (CNA).- The “unique value” of Catholic education in Philadelphia is being threatened by a shortage of resources, and Pennsylvania Catholics should encourage their legislators to create vouchers to sustain them, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput says.
“We can honor Catholic Schools Week this year by actually doing something about the fiscal problems hurting our schools. We need to press our lawmakers, respectfully but vigorously, to pass school choice,” the archbishop wrote in his Jan. 26 Catholic Standard & Times column.
“If nothing else, the crisis of Philadelphia’s Catholic schools is an unpleasant but finally very healthy wake up call. The bill for our failure to pass school choice over the past decade has come due. Now we’re paying for it,” the archbishop said.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has announced the closure of four of its 17 Catholic high schools and 44 of its 156 regional or elementary schools. The action will displace as many as 24,000 students.
The archbishop praised the “long record of dedicated service” compiled by Catholic school teachers and administrators.
“Today, scores of our pastors make extraordinary commitments of parish funds to keep our schools open and excellent,” he continued.
But schools run on resources, he said, “not simply good will and heroic service.”
“The resources simply don’t exist. Many of our parishes are financially strained. The archdiocese itself faces serious financial and organizational challenges that have been developing for many years and cannot be ignored.”
Vouchers, he said, give parents the power to choose the schools for their children. They make all schools more accountable, and would assist “many more families” than only the poor.
If approved, vouchers will free up Educational Improvement Tax Credit funds and other grant and scholarship monies for “many thousands of other school families.” They could provide “millions of dollars” of additional resources for many families, including Catholic school families.
Archbishop Chaput lamented the failure of vouchers in the Pennsylvania legislature in 2011, which he attributed to “too few people in the pews” listening.
“Very few Catholics called or wrote their state senators and representatives. Even fewer visited their offices to lobby as citizens,” the archbishop reported.
Though the legislation passed in the state Senate, it failed in the House.
“If we Philadelphia Catholics love our Catholic schools, and we obviously do, then the time to get active and focused is now,” Archbishop Chaput said.
He announced that he will be writing every state senator and representative in his archdiocese’s territory to ask them to support school vouchers.
“And I’ll continue doing it until vouchers pass.”
The archbishop encouraged Catholics, including his fellow bishops and pastors, to do the same.
- Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:03:00 +0000: Catholic faith set the foundation for ‘Extreme Makeover’ homebuilder – CNA Daily News
Charlotte, N.C., Jan 28, 2012 / 01:03 pm (CNA).- Frank Hereda has moved around a bit during his 35 years, but he keeps the values he learned growing up in a Catholic family and as a Catholic student close to his heart wherever he goes.
Hereda, who lived in Ohio, Indiana and Washington, D.C. before moving to Charlotte, N.C. five years ago, is co-founder of Bellamy Homes in Cornelius, N.C., the builders of the latest “Extreme Makeover” home in Lincolnton, N.C., that was completed Dec. 17, 2011. The home will house foster parents Devonda and James Friday of Lincolnton and their children, five of whom they recently adopted.
Hereda credits his family and his childhood with his desire to help others in need.
“I was born and raised Catholic. I went to St. Paul’s Catholic School in Indiana. It’s played a large role in my life in the fact that it instilled values from the start and that has shaped my life in an important way.”
Hereda and his Bellamy Homes partner, Wade Miller, were friends at Purdue University, and have teamed up to build a company that reflects the Catholic values Hereda learned in his youth.
Their company took a huge leap of faith and trust in reaching out to help the Lincolnton family, whose story appeared this past Christmas on a special two-hour episode of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” on ABC.
“We wanted a solid foundation (for the company)” Hereda said. “The first thing that came to mind was trust. It’s the most important thing.”
Building a 4,000-square-foot home in basically four days is going to require a great deal of trust and faith, Hereda admits.
“My faith is important to me. I have always focused on doing the right things… I think that if you just focus on doing the right things – in this case we are focusing on helping this family – we’ll be fine. It will work out how it’s supposed to work out.”
Bellamy Homes and its partners, suppliers and contractors are all donated their time and resources to build the home on Moore Street in Lincolnton, N.C., which is valued at more than $200,000. An army of more than 3,000 volunteers, including students and faculty from Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., also helped to build this dream home.
Hereda’s parents and family from Cleveland, Ohio came to help during the build as well.
“We’re focused on building this home for the family, raising as much money as we can for them and making sure the home is built well,” Hereda said. “Community is instrumental and we are very fortunate at how many people have stepped up and decided to help out.”
The Fridays returned from an all-expenses-paid dream vacation to Jamaica on Dec. 17, 2011.
Hereda and Miller, along with host Ty Pennington and the design team of “Extreme Makeover,” and the army of volunteers waited for them to reveal their new home – just in time to celebrate Christmas together as a family.
Posted with permission from the Catholic News Herald, newspaper for the Diocese of Charlotte, N.C.
- Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:03:00 +0000: Military archbishop: U.S. invasion led to fewer Iraqi Christians – CNA Daily News
Rome, Italy, Jan 28, 2012 / 07:03 am (CNA).- U.S. Military Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio says the collapse of Iraq’s Christian population is among the legacies of America’s invasion in 2003.
“Yes, you can say in a certain sense that the invasion of Iraq did provoke this tremendous diminution of the Christian population in that country. And what the future holds, that still remains to be seen,” the archbishop for the armed forces told CNA during his visit to Rome on Jan. 16.
His comments come only a month after the final pull-out of U.S. troops from Iraq, where they remained following the invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Aid agencies estimate that over the course of eight years, the Catholic population of Iraq fell from over 800,000, to less than 150,000 now
Archbishop Broglio believes Catholicism suffered after the invasion because of a perceived closeness to its previous ruler. He said Saddam Hussein tended “to trust Catholics, and gave them positions of responsibility.” One prominent Iraqi Catholic was Hussein’s Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz.
And even if Catholics “weren’t particularly part of the regime, they became identified with the regime,” Archbishop Broglio said.
“Before, they were a minority that was protected, but now they are a minority that is not protected.”
As President Barack Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops from Iraq on Dec. 15, he said they were leaving behind a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant,” country.
But there are signs that Iraqi Christians’ plight has worsened since then.
“At a time of increased political instability, we continue to receive disturbing reports,” said John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need on Jan. 20.
He said an attack took place earlier in the month against security personnel outside the residence of Kirkuk’s Archbishop Louis Sako.
Archbishop Sako, who was indoors at the time, told Aid to the Church in Need that the situation is less stable now that U.S. troops are gone, with much of the turmoil stemming from the power struggle between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Pontifex says there is a “ticking bomb regarding Christianity in Iraq.”
“Few Christians, no matter how deep their roots are in the local society, feel able to withstand the pressure to leave.”
Fear of an attack forced Archbishop Sako to cancel the Chaldean Catholics’ midnight Christmas celebration last month. Services were moved to the daytime, and Christians were warned not to display decorations outside their homes.
Nevertheless, it appears that many of the Catholics who fled Iraq would return if safety improved.
Monsignor John Kozar, president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, recently spoke of the “strong determination” some Iraqi Catholics have to go back home. He recently visited Jordan, where many Christians from Iraq now reside.
“I think they have a yearning to return to the homeland, and that homeland for them means practicing their Chaldean-rite Christianity,” the monsignor said. “That has become very, very important to them.”
- Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:26:00 +0000: God’s love will not fail you, archbishop tells leprosy victims – CNA Daily News
Vatican City, Jan 27, 2012 / 07:26 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski told those affected by leprosy that God’s love will never fail them.
In statement for the 59th World Leprosy Day, which will be observed on Jan. 29, the archbishop addressed survivors of the disease and those still suffering from it around the globe.
“He who is in suffering and … prays to the Lord is certain that God’s love will never abandon him,” the Archbishop told those who are suffering from the disease.
Archbishop Zimowski, who heads the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, said that those currently being treated for leprosy can and must “express all the riches of their dignity and spirituality.” He also counseled them to be in solidarity with others who have been “equally afflicted and have been marked indelibly by this infection.”
Those who have been cured of the disease can “communicate their gratitude in a practical way” by providing moral support to those still suffering from leprosy and contributing to the identification and prevention of the disease, he said.
“Those who have attained a cure can in this way communicate all their interior riches … as people touched by suffering and involved in working for the health of the community to which they belong.”
Leprosy, which is also called Hansen’s Disease, has not been eradicated from the modern world, although it continues to decrease every year. The World Health Organization estimated a total of about 200,000 cases in 2010 – 2011.
Archbishop Zimowski said that God’s love and the love of the Church, which is an extension of God’s work, “will never fail” them.
Pope Benedict XVI recently chose the gospel passage of Luke 17:19, “Stand and go; your faith has saved you” as the theme for the 20th World Day of the Sick, to be held on Feb. 11.
The archbishop pointed out that those afflicted by leprosy can find particular comfort in the Pope’s scripture selection because it speaks of Christ’s healing of the 10 lepers who were “readmitted to the community and reintegrated into the social occupational fabric.”
He expanded on the scripture passage by pointing out that the leper who returned to thank Jesus showed that “reacquired health is a sign of something more precious that mere physical healing.” The healing that the leper experienced was also a sign of salvation through Christ.
Archbishop Zimowski noted the many volunteer organizations that have helped in reducing the number of cases of leprosy, especially the Raoul Follereau Foundation based in Bologna, Italy.
He urged those involved in treating leprosy to fight against the disease and to continue their work “tenaciously” to reduce relapse cases.
- Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0000: English seminary in Rome celebrates its 650th birthday – CNA Daily News
Rome, Italy, Jan 27, 2012 / 06:10 pm (CNA).- The Catholic seminary in Rome where young Englishmen are trained for the priesthood turned 650 years-old on Jan. 27.
It was on that day in 1362 that the forerunner of the Venerable English College, a house for English and Welsh pilgrims to Rome, was founded. In the 16th century it became a seminary.
“It is right in the heart of Rome. It is a wonderful location,” said vice rector Fr. Mark Harold, as he gave a tour of the college to CNA.
The English College “is a really historic place and we believe it is the oldest English institution in the world outside England,” he explained.
The pilgrim house, which is tucked away on Rome’s Via di Monserrato, was in operation for about 200 years and enjoyed royal patronage.
Beginning in 1412 its front wall was emblazoned with the English Royal Coat of Arms – a crest that is still there today. During the reign of Henry VII it was known as the “King’s Hospice,” while Henry VIII described it as “Our Hospice.”
But that all changed in the 16th century when the English monarchy turned against the Catholic faith, fueling a Protestant Reformation in England.
“Then, Pope Gregory XIII met with Cardinal William Allen who was resident here in the hospice,” explained Fr. Harold. Pope Gregory said, “‘why don’t you found your seminary for the English here in this place on the Via Mosserato?’” Portraits of the two founders still claim pride of place in the seminary’s dining room.
Since its foundation in 1579 the English College has produced numerous martyrs who were killed for their Catholic faith upon return to England. The roll of honor in the college’s grand entrance hall is a litany of 10 former students who have been declared canonized saints, 28 who have been declared beatified, and four others who are venerable.
The impressive list of martyrs led to the college being bestowed with the title “Venerable” in 1818.
“It is very much part of the tradition of this college, a tradition of mission for the Catholic Church, a mission showing witness, showing martyrdom for Christ by giving their life,” said Fr. Harold.
He related how the college’s first martyr, St. Ralph Sherwin, was executed at Tyburn in central London in 1581, only two years after the seminary was founded.
His fellow students quickly developed a tradition that whenever an alumnus was martyred they would assemble in front of the college chapel’s altar piece to sing a “Te Deum Laudemus” in thanksgiving. That tradition will be repeated after Mass on Jan. 27.
Over the past 650 years the college has hosted many distinguished guests – from the poet John Milton to Cardinal John Henry Newman to Blessed John Paul II in 1979.
“It is also reported that William Shakespeare, who was a recusant Catholic – so many people say – visited Italy and the college. He certainly wrote widely about Italy in his plays,” claimed Fr. Harold.
This weekend many alumni will return to the college to celebrate the 650th anniversary, including Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who was also rector for six years in the 1970s.
They return to an institution that seems to be in good health with numbers of seminarians on the up and up. When Fr. Harold joined the staff three-and-a-half years ago the college had 25 students. Today it has 45. The majority come from England and Wales, while four hail from Scandinavia.
A former student himself, Fr. Harold says it is “a real privilege” to be a seminarian in Rome because it gives young men six years at the heart of the Church to develop both intellectually and spiritually.
“That spiritual development is particularly important – your life with Christ in prayer, to make it become part of you. Seminary life is not just about acquiring knowledge and skills. It is about growing in Christ,” he said.
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