News Briefs
From Catholic News Service
U.S.
Exhibit at Vermont priory aims to keep memory of
atomic bombings alive
WESTON, Vt. (CNS) -- Natsumi Nagao was 14 when the United States dropped an
atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. She was injured so badly
her skin hung off her body and had to be cut off. When her father found her
several days later, the only way he recognized her was by her cries. Until two
years ago Nagao was unable to speak about the horror of that day in 1945, but
she brought her story to the Benedictines' Weston Priory earlier this summer for
a special presentation opening the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition, on
view at the priory until Columbus Day weekend in October. The exhibit includes
photographs and testimonies about those fateful days, Aug. 6, 1945, when
thousands of people were killed in Hiroshima, and three days later, Aug. 9, when
thousands more died in Nagasaki, Japan. The Benedictine Brothers of Weston
Priory were hosting the exhibition for the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation,
which seeks to have at least two exhibitions in each state as a way of keeping
alive the memory of the atomic bombs.
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Pilgrimage bus crashes en route to Marian Days; 17
dead
SHERMAN, Texas (CNS) -- Seventeen parishioners from Houston-area Vietnamese
Catholic churches were killed early Aug. 8 when the pilgrimage bus they were
taking to Marian Days in Carthage, Mo., ran off a highway overpass north of
Dallas and crashed onto the road below. Family members of the dead and injured
hurried to Dallas after the early morning crash, while others gathered at Our
Lady of Lavang and Vietnamese Martyrs churches in Houston to pray and await word
on victims. Special Masses were planned for Houston and Dallas Vietnamese
parishes the evening of the accident. Twelve passengers died at the scene and
another five later died in area hospitals. Annette Gonzales Taylor,
communications director for the Dallas Diocese, told Catholic
News Service in a phone interview that St. Patrick Church in Dennison
and St. Mary Church in Sherman, near the site of the crash, prepared places for
family members to gather, rest, get a meal and receive other assistance.
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Catholic higher education not just for wealthy, say
school officials
LA CROSSE, Wis. (CNS) -- A myth persists that Catholic higher education is only
for the wealthy and that public colleges and universities are the sole option
for students coming from middle-and low-income families. "There's this
conception that only rich people can afford a private school," said Terry
Norman, director of financial aid at Viterbo University in La Crosse, founded by
the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. "But the average student
here comes from a family that makes around $60,000 a year." It's Norman's
job to make Viterbo's price tag -- $19,490 for tuition, plus room and board --
affordable for as many families as possible. "Our goal is to make Viterbo
no more expensive than a public university," Norman told The Catholic
Times, newspaper of the La Crosse Diocese. "We can't always make it happen,
but we try." According to Norman, the debt accumulated by 2007 Viterbo
graduates over their four or five years of study averages $18,000. "At
first that seems like a lot, but that's still less than the price of a new
car," she said, "and the students leave here with something that's
going to last them a lifetime."
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Catholic schools work to curb obesity, promote
fitness and nutrition
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Obesity, one of the fastest growing problems in North
America, is being tackled by Catholic schools and colleges hoping to reverse the
trend while also promoting general wellness. "It's all across society; it's
a common issue," said Mike Paonessa, district principal for the Edmonton
Catholic Schools District in Alberta, Canada, which is implementing diocesanwide
policies and initiatives to address obesity and wellness. In the Diocese of
Memphis, Tenn., Catholic schools are combining efforts to address obesity and
nutrition with steps to fight poverty through a program called "Center for
Community Empowerment," which is in several schools. Under the program,
centers provide children with healthy, nutritional meals through kitchens
staffed by unemployed mothers. The mothers are provided with necessary training
and certification that enables them to find other work. The program also
provides students with backpacks full of food for the weekend.
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Catholic educators become students in course on
Holocaust
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Nesse Godin survived starvation, beatings and a gas chamber
as a teenager. "People always say you must have been really smart or really
strong to survive the Holocaust. I tell them I wasn't smart or strong. I was
fortunate," she said. The Lithuanian native presented her story as part of
"Bearing Witness: Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Contemporary
Issues," an annual seminar for Catholic educators offering strategies for
teaching the Holocaust. This year educators from schools in North Carolina,
Washington, Maryland and Virginia gathered Aug. 3-7 in the nation's capital and
were themselves the students. The seminar is an annual Holocaust education
program developed in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League, the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Archdiocese of Washington, the National Catholic
Educational Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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Darfur the focus of new Bible study guide
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Many perspectives have been used over the years as the basis
for Scripture study, but a new Bible study using ongoing genocide as its basis
may be a first. "The Not on Our Watch Christian Companion" uses the
atrocities in Darfur, a region in Sudan, for its biblical reflections. The book
expands on The New York Times best-seller "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to
End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond" by actor Don Cheadle, who starred in the
Rwandan genocide-themed film "Hotel Rwanda," and Africa expert John
Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, a Darfur activist group. To keep
the series of Scripture reflections from having only a Protestant perspective,
"Christian Companion" authors Gregory Leffel and Bill Mefford have
recruited Jesuits to produce a supplement for the book on how Catholic social
teaching applies to Darfur, according Cory Smith, advocacy director for the
Enough Project. Information about the book is available online at:
www.darfurchristianaction.org.
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WORLD
Pope calls for immediate end to military action in
Georgia
BRESSANONE, Italy (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI appealed for an immediate end to
military operations in Georgia and its breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Citing reports of heavy civilian casualties and a large number of refugees, the
pope called on the international community to act quickly to bring Russian and
Georgian leaders to the bargaining table. "It is my fervent wish that
military actions cease immediately," the pope said Aug. 10. He urged both
sides to "refrain, also in the name of a common Christian heritage, from
further confrontations and violent retaliations that could degenerate into a
wider conflict." The pope made the remarks in the northern Italian city of
Bressanone, where he was ending a two-week vacation. Vatican sources said he was
following the swiftly moving events in the Caucasus region, where a Georgian
army operation in South Ossetia Aug. 8 prompted a heavy Russian retaliation that
extended far into Georgian territory.
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Pope says World Youth Day contrasts with young
people's escapism
BRESSANONE, Italy (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI highlighted the "authentic
joy" experienced by World Youth Day participants and said it stood in stark
contrast to the drug-fueled escapism affecting many young people today. The
pope, speaking Aug. 10 at the end of a two-week vacation in the northern Italian
city of Bressanone, offered what he called a "spontaneous reflection"
on his World Youth Day trip to Australia in late July. What particularly
impressed him in Australia, he said, were the "joyous faces of so many boys
and girls from all over the world. In the great cities of the young Australian
nation, those young people were a sign of authentic joy, sometimes noisy but
always peaceful and positive," he said. Although an estimated 400,000 young
people participated in the Australian events, the pope noted that they caused no
disorder or damage. "To be happy, they didn't need to resort to vulgarity
or violence, or to alcohol and drugs," he said.
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U.S. bishop says Zimbabweans need reconciliation
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- As soon as a political solution is found in
Zimbabwe, work on reconciliation should begin immediately, said a U.S. bishop
who had just concluded a visit to the troubled country. The Zimbabwean Catholic
justice and peace commission is working with other nongovernmental organizations
on strategies to rebuild the deeply divided country, said Bishop John H. Ricard
of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., in a telephone interview from Johannesburg,
South Africa, Aug. 9. Bishop Ricard and a U.S. bishops' adviser on Africa
visited Zimbabwe Aug. 6-9. Reconciliation in Zimbabwe, which is experiencing
severe political and economic crises, is a "serious concern" of the
country's bishops, said Bishop Ricard, who is chairman of the U.S. bishops'
Subcommittee on the Pastoral Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa. Church
leaders are "revisiting the way the church responded in the past" to
issues of justice and "much reflection is being done," he said.
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Faith community gains respect in AIDS policymaking,
say observers
MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- Faith-based organizations, which for years have been
relegated to the margins of discussions on AIDS policy and planning, are finally
beginning to gain recognition, said participants in the XVII International AIDS
Conference, which concluded Aug. 8 in Mexico City. "This isn't perceived as
a friendly place to be a religious leader, but increasingly the faith community
is being respected and taken seriously," said Linda Hartke, coordinator of
the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, a group that includes several U.S. Catholic
groups, including the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services and the Catholic
Medical Mission Board. "Yet with respect comes new responsibility and
challenges. The more engaged we are, the more other people expect of us. The
challenge for us is to do more, to do it better, to learn from our experience,
to build bridges to other sectors of civil society as well as governments and
the private sector, because it's only by working in partnership and not in
isolation that we'll be more effective," Hartke told Catholic
News Service.
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Bolivian bishops: Political leaders must engage in
dialogue for unity
LA PAZ, Bolivia (CNS) -- Regardless of the results of Bolivia's recall election,
feuding political leaders still need to engage in dialogue to build a lasting
agreement, said Bolivia's bishops. Before Bolivian President Evo Morales won the
recall election Aug. 10, the Bolivian bishops' conference urged voters to follow
"the principles of freedom, respect and democratic coexistence" and
called on God to "guide our steps in the way of peace and unity." But
they warned that "a referendum, in and of itself, does not represent the
solution to the country's structural problems." Once the balloting was
over, they said in an Aug. 7 statement, political authorities and civic leaders
must "resume sincere and authentic dialogue as the only means of building
lasting agreements and consensus that will enable the country to look to the
future with hope."
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PEOPLE
British government permits church to exhume
Cardinal Newman's body
LONDON (CNS) -- The British government has agreed to allow the exhumation of the
body of a 19th-century cardinal whose cause for sainthood widely is expected to
progress soon to beatification. The Ministry of Justice granted a license to
allow undertakers to dig up the body of Cardinal John Henry Newman from a grave
in a small cemetery in the suburbs of Birmingham, England, and transfer it to a
marble sarcophagus in a church in the city, where it can be venerated by
pilgrims. The license was expected to arrive Aug. 11, the 118th anniversary of
the cardinal's death in 1890. Approval had been delayed by several months
because of a 19th-century law that forbids the transfer of bodies from graves to
church tombs. But Sir Suma Chakrabarti, permanent secretary to the Ministry of
Justice, finally decided to make a special exception to allow the exhumation to
go ahead. Born in London in 1801, Cardinal Newman was an Anglican priest who led
the Oxford movement in the 1830s to draw Anglicans to their Catholic roots. He
converted to Catholicism at the age of 44 after a succession of clashes with
Anglican bishops made him a virtual outcast from the Church of England.
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Acting editor of Dallas Catholic newspaper dies of
cancer at age 48
VICTORIA, Texas (CNS) -- A funeral Mass was celebrated Aug. 4 for Debra Wearden
Hampton, who was acting editor of the Texas Catholic, Dallas' diocesan
newspaper. She died July 31 at her Dallas home after a quiet but hard-fought
struggle with cancer. She was 48. The funeral was in her hometown of Victoria at
St. Mary's Catholic Church, followed by entombment in Resurrection Mausoleum. A
memorial service was planned for Aug. 16 at St. Joseph Catholic Church in
Richardson. For the past three years Hampton was managing editor of the Texas
Catholic, and for the several weeks before her death had been acting editor,
even as she grew weaker from the ravages of cancer. "(Debra) was a very
gracious lady and a dedicated journalist," said Annette Gonzales Taylor,
director of communications for the Diocese of Dallas. "She continued to
come into the office -- even when she was very ill -- to make sure the newspaper
went out."
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