Historic row homes to be razed for patient facility

After a two month stand-off, the Baltimore Heritage has decided to withdraw its appeal and lawsuit relating to the demolition of rowhouses to make way for a new patient tower designed to better accommodate and care for patients of Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center.

The $292 million project will also mean the destruction of historic row homes where the nation’s first black Catholic parish, St. Francis Xavier, got its start.

In a Feb. 6 statement, Mercy said, “The leadership of Baltimore Heritage felt that their lawsuit, even if successful, likely would have just delayed the demolition, and they did not want to be obstructionists. Mercy has agreed to record the buildings consistent with professional standards and to create a display in the new facility regarding the buildings and their history.”

Mercy has also agreed not to demolish the buildings until it has completed its necessary photographic records.

“The buildings are rare examples of early 19th century Baltimore and very significant to the African-American history of the city,” said Tyler Gearhart, executive director of Preservation Maryland and chair of the Baltimore Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. “I’m disappointed that demolition appears to be imminent, especially given that there are design alternatives that could both preserve the buildings and meet the expansion needs of the hospital.”

Kathleen Kotarba, executive director of Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, said these 1820s row homes are the oldest and most intact residential structures in original downtown Baltimore.

Ms. Kotarba said many prominent people, especially in the black community, lived in the row homes. The historic St. Francis Xavier, now located on Caroline and Oliver streets, began in one of the homes before moving to its larger location. According to a Nov. 27 statement from Mercy, external consultants reached the conclusion, in 2004, that the hospital’s existing inpatient tower building could not be renovated to accommodate the hospital’s future needs.

Furthermore, three nationally-renowned architects and the external consultants “independently concluded that the building’s new site must be immediately adjacent to existing facilities such as materials management and the emergency department to maintain operational efficiency.” The hospital is seeking to begin work on the tower, which is scheduled to open in the spring of 2010, as soon as possible.

Mercy will also demolish its “aging” Pleasant Street garage and is in the process of building a replacement garage with 900 additional spaces at the corner of Guilford Avenue and Pleasant Street. “Guided by the Sisters of Mercy, who began their healing ministry on the same location in 1874, the hospital’s leadership remains dedicated to strengthening the sisters’ mission to care and serve the people of Baltimore,” said the Nov. 27 statement from Mercy.

U.S. senators encourage support for the poor

WASHINGTON – Two U.S. senators lauded the work of people in Catholic social ministry and asked for their continued support in working to improve the lot of the poor.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., spoke separately Feb. 13 to the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, as people affiliated with parish, diocesan, national and independent Catholic programs wound up an afternoon of lobbying on Capitol Hill. Sen. Casey said it was vital that the conference attendees spend time in Washington to remind those in government of their efforts “day after day, year after year” to protect “the least, the last and the lost.”

Sen. Casey, a Catholic and one-time Jesuit volunteer, quoted St. Augustine’s observation that “without justice, what are kingdoms but great robbers,” and noted that often great work is done in the halls of Congress “but too often it is a kingdom with robbers.”

He gave the example of the government’s role in the disaster of Hurricane Katrina to define what he called not just benign neglect, but “malign neglect.”

“Too many people didn’t take it seriously enough,” he said.

The damage to the Gulf Coast caused by Katrina “could have been mitigated if people in this city had done the right thing years before,” Sen. Casey said. “We should use that tragedy in a constructive way to show what our priorities should be.”

He cited current efforts to amend bills passed by both the House and Senate to raise the minimum wage to include tax cut provisions.

“Tax cuts have literally been put in front of an increase in the minimum wage,” Sen. Casey said. “We have to return to much more of a focus on the common good.”

Sen. Casey encouraged the audience in their efforts to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, and suggested they keep talking about its role in helping working families as well as the poorest children.

“One way to make a program wither on the vine is to say it’s a program only for the poor,” he said. “The poor don’t have lobbyists.”

Sen. Hagel, an Episcopalian, said too often the world responds to people in poverty in ways that further devalue their human dignity, rather than helping them maintain self-respect. “You cannot take dignity from people without some cost,” Sen. Hagel said.

Both Sen. Casey and Sen. Hagel talked about pushing to end the Iraq War and get U.S. troops home. Sen. Hagel said the problems of Iraq “are not going to be solved at the end of a rifle. We need to do better than that.”

But it’s not for the United States to decide what kind of a democracy Iraq becomes, Sen. Hagel said. He warned that “we can’t impose our values on anybody.” Nor can the United States afford to isolate nations, Sen. Hagel said.

Sen. Casey said U.S. withdrawal from Iraq should be handled in such a way that it not only addresses the complexities of the current situation but also ensures that the lessons learned there are not lost on the U.S. government.

About 600 people, representing diocesan social ministry programs and Catholic organizations engaged in social ministry across the country, attended the Feb. 11-14 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering.

New head of clergy congregation defends celibacy

VATICAN CITY – Two months after taking over as head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes has issued a strong and lengthy defense of priestly celibacy.

“Priestly celibacy is a precious gift of Christ to his church, a gift that must continually be meditated upon and strengthened, especially in the deeply secularized modern world,” Cardinal Hummes said. The cardinal made the comments in a full-page article he wrote for the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. It was published Feb. 14 under the headline “The importance of priestly celibacy.” Cardinal Hummes, formerly the archbishop of Sao Paolo, arrived at his new Vatican post last December, shortly after telling a Brazilian newspaper that priestly celibacy was a disciplinary norm and not a church dogma and was therefore open to change.

Vatican officials were concerned, and within hours of arriving in Rome Cardinal Hummes issued a statement emphasizing that priestly celibacy was a long and valuable tradition in the Latin-rite church, based on strong theological and pastoral arguments.

The cardinal’s newspaper article was written to mark the 40th anniversary of “Sacerdotalis Caelibatus,” Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on priestly celibacy, issued June 24, 1967. Cardinal Hummes reviewed what he said was strong evidence that priestly celibacy has its roots in apostolic times, not later centuries.

The cardinal said celibacy represents “a more full configuration with the Lord Jesus,” who lived his own life as a celibate, and is a sign of the total love priests give to the church. For all priests, he said, celibacy should be a call to happiness and not a burden of suffering.

Cardinal Hummes said celibacy is also a sign of pastoral charity.

“Common experience confirms that it is easier to open one’s heart to one’s brothers fully and without reserve for those who have no other emotional attachments, no matter how legitimate and holy, except the attachment to Christ,” he said.

Cardinal Hummes reviewed Pope Paul’s reasons for confirming priestly celibacy 40 years ago and said the same reasons were still valid today.

At the same time, he said, Pope Paul also recognized that celibacy is not required by the nature of the priesthood itself, as shown by the fact that the Eastern rites of the allow the ordination of married men.

Cardinal Hummes reviewed various discussions on celibacy over the last 40 years, particularly in synods of bishops and other Rome meetings. On every occasion, he said, the participants have ended up confirming the value of priestly celibacy. At the 2005 synod on the Eucharist, some bishops wanted a discussion on ordaining married men in certain circumstances, but the idea was rejected as “a road not to travel,” he said.

London Catholic churches see boost in illegal immigrants

LONDON – The size of the Catholic Church in the British capital is being boosted by waves of illegal immigrants, according to a new report.

Undocumented or irregular migrants now make up more than three-quarters of the congregations of at least three London parishes, said “The Ground of Justice: The Report of a Pastoral Research Inquiry Into the Needs of Migrants in London’s Catholic Community,” published Feb. 14.

Many migrants live in abject poverty and fear of deportation, said the report by the Von Hugel Institute of St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

The report, commissioned last year by the London dioceses of Westminster, Southwark and Brentwood, said that about one in six Catholic migrants in the capital – about 25,000 out of an estimated total of 150,000 – was there illegally. It said they often were exploited cruelly because of their irregular status.

The report said that more than a third of the migrants earn less than the minimum wage of 5.35 pounds (US$10.40) an hour, and more than half share cramped rooms at high rents.

Many of the migrants interviewed said they suffered from isolation and loneliness, and two-fifths of them reported some form of depression.

The authors said they were told by some parishioners that they could not help with the survey because they were fearful of the consequences – such as deportation – if they were identified by immigration authorities.

The report said the irregular status of many Catholic migrants is a “ reality that impacts well beyond the ethnic chaplaincies and cannot be reduced to a ‘minority’ fringe.”

“Today, irregularity is a core experience of baptized Londoners,” the report said.

Bishops must “appreciate the extent to which they are ministering to a church whose baptized members live in fear, and at grave risk, because of their irregular status,” it said. This means that there are dozens of clergy “knowingly and unknowingly ministering to thousands of parishioners who are irregular or undocumented in terms of their presence in the U.K.”

The authors of the report interviewed 1,000 migrants attending Masses in London, as well as speaking to organizations of national groups of migrants and to migrants who lived on the streets. Twenty priests were interviewed along with representatives of religious orders and agencies working with newly arrived migrants. Questionnaires, which could be answered anonymously, were provided in Polish, French, Chinese, Lithuanian, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English.

The three dioceses involved had a weekly Massgoing figure in 2005 of 285,000 covering Greater London and its outer areas. But congregation figures are estimated to be higher, having been boosted by recent waves of migrants from the eight Central and East European countries that joined the European Union in 2004.

Catholic migrants also have been arriving from countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. This has prompted speculation in the national media that the Catholic Church is overtaking the Church of England as the most active and worshipping religious community in England and Wales.

“These changes have been variously described as the Catholic community’s ‘greatest opportunity’ and its ‘greatest threat,’” the report said.

“For many immigrants from Africa, the Catholic Church is their first port of call,” it said. “They are often seeking refuge and protection from terrifying lives which leave them in ‘grave fear.’”

The report said the church had responded positively to the crisis but often had been “overwhelmed” by the scale of the challenge.

Last year, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor of Westminster said he supported an amnesty for illegal immigrant workers who have no criminal record.

In a Feb. 14 statement, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop Kevin McDonald of Southwark and Bishop Thomas McMahon of Brentwood said they would reflect on the findings of the report.

“London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, home to migrant communities who have come to seek shelter from oppression and to improve their economic position,” they said.

“Migrants are very much the present reality of the Catholic Church in London and one of several sources of hope for the Catholic Church of the future too,” the bishops added. “In our view they are also a source of hope for the future of the nation.”

Italian bill proposes rights for unwed couples

VATICAN CITY – An Italian legislative proposal that would grant some legal rights to unwed couples – including same-sex partners – has set the stage for a major church- state showdown.

On one side is a wide spectrum of Italian social and political forces, including many lay Catholics, who say the bill would end discrimination against unwed couples in areas of health care, pensions, housing and employment.

On the other side is the Italian bishops’ conference, which has argued that the law would undermine marriage and the traditional family. Some bishops have warned Catholic legislators that they are duty-bound to vote against the proposal.

Supporters point out that the bill is a compromise proposal that recognizes the rights of cohabiting couples, but without legally recognizing the unions themselves. In other words, they say, this is not a “gay marriage” bill.

Opponents agree, but say the effect would be the same: creating a second-class form of marriage and deconstructing a society built on the traditional family.

The conflict was front-page news in early February and continued to escalate.

“We’re facing a clash that is unprecedented in the history of church-state relations in Italy,” said Italian church historian Alberto Melloni.

Pope Benedict XVI was drawn into the fray Feb. 12 when he addressed a conference on natural law. The pope said the institution of marriage was divinely ordered and not subject to political compromise.

“No human law can subvert the norm written by the Creator without dramatically wounding society in that which constitutes its basic foundation. To forget this would mean weakening the family, penalizing children and making the future of society precarious,” the pope said.

Although the pope did not specifically mention the Italian legislation, his comments were interpreted as marching orders to the country’s Catholic politicians. “The pope excommunicates cohabiting couples” and “Pope: No new laws on marriage” were typical Italian headlines the next day.

Whenever a pope weighs in – even indirectly – in Italian political affairs, a political backlash is sure to follow. In this case, some lawmakers said the church had so blatantly interfered in political affairs that it constituted a violation of the concordat that regulates church-state relations.

Caught in the middle of the dispute was Rosy Bindi, a leading Catholic politician who co-sponsored the compromise legislation. Ms. Bindi, who is unmarried and lives in a residence run by nuns, said the strong reaction by the church hierarchy surprised her and caused her “great suffering.”

Ms. Bindi said she had helped write “a just law that protects the weakest, recognizes the rights of people facing discrimination, and does not create any legal entity that could undermine the family.”

Ms. Bindi, who is family minister in the leftist coalition government of Italian Prime Minister , said she was disappointed with the bishops’ reaction. The church she loved, she said, was one which “concerns itself with the things of God.”

That comment provoked a new wave of criticism from members of the hierarchy, who said it was an attempt to silence the church on political issues.

“The church that is concerned with the things of God cannot help but be concerned with the things of man,” said the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. “One cannot understand why the church, the pope and the bishops cannot speak about a topic as central as the family.”

The debate has exposed some serious fault lines within Italy’s Catholic community. On Feb. 15, several leading Catholic intellectuals urged the bishops to back off their opposition, saying it had crossed the line into the legitimate lay sphere of politics.

A poll showed that Italians overwhelmingly supported the provisions of the bill, although practicing Catholics were divided over whether the legal rights should be limited to heterosexuals or extended to gay couples, too.

At the same time, new sociological data showed that the number of cohabiting couples in Italy had reached 560,000, doubling in the last 10 years. The bishops see that as a sign that marriage is already eroding and believe the new law would accelerate the process.

Opposition to the legislation has been led by Cardinal , the papal vicar of Rome, who is expected to retire soon. During his long tenure as president of the Italian bishops’ conference, he has raised the church’s political profile, leading some critics to say he behaves more like a party boss than a pastor.

One of Cardinal Ruini’s top auxiliaries, Bishop , has expressed the toughest line on the proposed law. He said the bishops would call Catholic politicians to “a full coherence with their faith, which in this case means a commitment not to approve a law that contrasts with the teaching of the church.”

But some bishops and theologians have taken a more flexible position. Archbishop Ignazio Sanna, a member of the International Theological Commission, said he could accept the new law if the final language recognizes only the rights of those involved in nonmarriage unions, and not the unions themselves.

Dehonian Father Luigi Lorenzetti, director of the magazine “Moral Theology Review,” made a similar argument, saying the legislation as proposed could be considered an “acceptable compromise” by Catholic politicians.

Vatican sources say the pope is unlikely to intervene explicitly on the matter. In a sense, the sources said, he has already given Italian bishops the tools they need: In 2003, guidelines for Catholic politicians were issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at the time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope.

The document said Catholic politicians cannot vote for a law that “contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.” It said that phrase refers not only to life- and-death questions like abortion and euthanasia, but also to the protection of the family based on marriage between a man and a woman.

“In no way can other forms of cohabitation be placed on the same level as marriage, nor can they receive legal recognition as such,” it said.

Italian bishops now face the tricky task of deciding whether the new legislation fits that description, or whether it leaves wiggle room for Catholic lawmakers. Cardinal says China, Vatican must negotiate

HONG KONG – Cardinal Ze-kiun of has reiterated the need for negotiations to resolve the issue of Catholic bishops’ ordinations in mainland China and to find a bilaterally acceptable way of normalizing relations.

Cardinal Zen said illegitimate episcopal ordinations have created new obstacles for the dialogue between China and the Vatican and the normalization of their relations, and he called for an approach acceptable to both sides.

However, Anthony Liu Bainian, vice president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Feb. 14 told UCA News, an Asian church news agency, that the church in China will continue to elect and ordain its own bishops as it has done in the past 50 years.

Currently, Liu said, China is examining applications for episcopal ordinations in the Guangzhou, Guizhou and Yichang dioceses.

After decades of harsh persecution of Catholics who maintained their ties to the Vatican and stringent efforts by the government to exclude Vatican influence over all areas of church life in the country, the communist government appeared to be relaxing its stance. In 2005 several Chinese bishops were ordained after approval by the Vatican and the patriotic association. However, in 2006 the patriotic association moved forward with the ordinations of three bishops without Vatican consent.

After a high-level meeting on China at the Vatican Jan. 19-20, the Vatican said it hoped to continue a “respectful and constructive dialogue with government authorities to overcome the misunderstandings of the past” and to normalize relations to ensure “the peaceful and fruitful life of faith in the church and to work together for the good of the Chinese people and for peace in the world.”

The Vatican also announced Pope Benedict XVI would write a letter to Chinese Catholics, and sources said the Vatican would establish a commission to monitor the situation of the church in China. At Library of Congress, cardinal warns against secularism

WASHINGTON – Freedom of religion, and all freedom, can be placed at risk by an “aggressive secularism” that asserts its dominance in society, Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago warned in a Feb. 13 talk at the Library of Congress.

In his talk – titled “What Kind of Democracy Leads to Secularization?” – Cardinal George weighed in against both legal and cultural expressions of secularism that marginalize the importance of religion in society.

It is, the cardinal said, “an issue of great importance for our life together in a democratic republic.” Religion “can remain a necessary and legitimate actor in our affairs,” he added.

“The secular must provide legitimate ground for religion” in society, Cardinal George said. “When the secular is legitimized without freedom of religion, persecution of religion becomes inevitable.”

He noted his own remarks could be minimized. “If I were to present an argument on its own philosophical, rational terms, it would be seen as religious, because of the speaker,” he said.

Cardinal George took aim at the Supreme Court. “Their jurisprudence is admittedly incoherent,” going back 50 years to when Justice Felix Frankfurter was on the bench, he said.

The cardinal cited as one example the 1971 ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman, which dealt with Pennsylvania and Rhode Island laws on government aid to religious schools. Eight-member majorities of the high court, in each of the two questions before it in the case, ruled against government aid, calling it “an excessive government entanglement with religion.” But the cardinal noted that many European nations, “most Canadian provinces and even the Baathist regime in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq” – which, he acknowledged, was not a democracy – “have given money to the parents so their children can attend Catholic schools” without those nations’ fortunes being put at risk.

“Incoherent and unpredictable law has resulted in self-censorship,” Cardinal George added, noting on the day before Valentine’s Day that some have even banned Valentine’s Day cards to avoid any possible entanglement between government and religion.

Cardinal George said a “radical secularist” society would resemble Soviet-era Russia by “limiting freedom of religion to the freedom of private conscience and worship.”

“In the United States, the primary danger to democracy comes not from religion, but from philosophical secularism,” Cardinal George said, adding that some of the wounds have been self-inflicted. Jews embraced secularism, he said, to show that one “did not have to be Christian to be American,” and, likewise, Catholics embraced secularism to prove one “did not have to be Protestant to be American.”

But matters have been carried too far, the cardinal said, “when a preacher can be tried in Scandinavia …, and even in Chicago, for saying that the Bible says homosexual activity is immoral.”

Cardinal George said another danger can manifest itself when “democracy doesn’t remove religion, but democracy replaces religion: ‘The homeland deserves our love.’“ At times, he said, “it can be replaced by asserting that the mission takes on a religion dimension.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, whose travels in the United States in 1831 resulted in the widely quoted book “Democracy in America,” “loved this country but was afraid for its future,” Cardinal George said. The French writer wondered whether democratic ideals would “be undermined by the same forces that give democracy its rise.”

“What kind of democracy promotes freedom? Ours, if it becomes totally free,” Cardinal George said. “What kind of democracy destroys freedom? Ours, if it becomes totally secularized.” Disabled Catholics draw on suffering to minister

PHILADELPHIA – Men and women across the country who are members of a little- known community that is open to people with disabilities – as well as those without – are imitating the crucified Christ by drawing on their own suffering to minister to others.

“Handicapped people are not worthless,” said Maria Burke, 53, a parishioner at St. Catherine of Siena in Horsham who has multiple sclerosis. “We have something to give to the world. We can still contribute.”

Ms. Burke is one of 24 women and six men who have become Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified, a secular institute for laypeople, many of whom have disabilities.

Members consecrate themselves to God by professing perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the spirit of St. Francis. They are called to live exemplary Christian lives in the ordinary circumstances of their family, parish, work, civic and social environments.

For Ms. Burke, the institute is an answer to a lifelong prayer.

“Long before I was diagnosed with MS, I just felt this need inside of me for religious life,” said Ms. Burke.

In 1987, after she learned she had multiple sclerosis, she gave up on pursuing a vocation to religious life. She lost her independence and relies on an aide to help her.

“It wasn’t so bad at first,” Ms. Burke said about her condition. “I went from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair, and I fought it every step of the way.” Ms. Burke admits to being “mad as hell” when she was first diagnosed. “Whenever I could no longer do something I could always do before, I’d get frustrated. And the more frustrated I got, the angrier I got,” she told The Catholic Standard & Times, newspaper of the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

One day, Father Lawrence Gleason, parochial vicar at St. Catherine at the time, brought her information about the Albany, N.Y.-based Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified.

Being a part of the institute has given her “a whole new way of looking at things,” she said.

“I’m not angry like I used to be. I’m at peace with everything. It’s a wonderful feeling. It really and truly has brought me peace,” she added.

Louise D. Principe is the former general minister of the Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified and one of the group’s founding members.

“We’re all in various stages of disrepair,” said Ms. Principe, 63, who was born with a hereditary muscle disease. In 1993, surgery on her spine left her partially paralyzed from the neck down.

“Jesus saved the world by uniting his will to the will of the Father in perfect obedience,” Ms. Principe said. “It has nothing to do with ‘doing’ a lot of stuff. We can do this, too, no matter what our condition, because it doesn’t depend on ‘doing.’

“It’s a matter of ‘being.’ And ‘being’ does not depend on whether I use my power wheelchair or whether someone uses a voice synthesizer to speak. That’s irrelevant,” she said.

The institute has canonical status as a public association of the faithful, Ms. Principe said.

It accepts people with and without disabilities who have a desire to consecrate their life to Christ in the secular world; who have an interest in serving others and promoting Christian values in society; who have moral, emotional and psychological balance; and who are over the age of 21 and have a means of support. Initial formation takes place within a person’s everyday environment over a three- to five-year period. Missionaries recite morning and evening prayer, and attend monthly days of recollection and an annual weeklong retreat.

Aside from prayer and suffering, the missionaries are called to address the needs of their suffering neighbor as a witness to the dignity and value of human life, regardless of its condition.

William Watts, 38, a professed member of the Franciscan Missionaries, lives at Good Shepherd Home in Allentown.

He has muscular dystrophy and uses an electric wheelchair, a ventilator and a tracheal tube to help him breath. But that doesn’t stop him from ministering to the home’s 99 other residents, most of whom have cerebral palsy.

“People always thought that persons with disabilities were not able to have vocations but God does call people,” Mr. Watts said. “And it helps us to know that the Lord does have a purpose for us.”

Chinese Catholics hope cathedral will boost evangelization

GUANGZHOU, China – Local and foreign Catholics expressed hope that a newly renovated Gothic cathedral in southern China would boost evangelization.

Local media coverage of the cathedral’s official reopening should make more people aware of the cathedral’s existence and boost evangelization, Guangzhou resident Han Weizhou told UCA News, an Asian church news agency.

Mr. Han, who attended the Feb. 9 Mass celebrating the formal opening of Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Guangzhou Diocese, said he feels the cathedral is a more comfortable place to worship now that it has been renovated. He said he was amazed each time he looked around at the new altar, furniture, stained-glass windows and other changes.

More than 1,000 Catholics attended the Mass to mark the occasion. Bishop- designate Joseph Gan Junqiu of Guangzhou celebrated the Mass, and Bishop Joseph Liao Hongqing of Meizhou as well as 11 priests from Guangzhou and neighboring dioceses concelebrated.

The cathedral reopened formally after more than two years of renovation. Masses had resumed at the cathedral in mid-December.

It is one of the largest Gothic churches in China with a floor area of 3,305 square yards. Constructed with large granite blocks in 1888, the cathedral is commonly known as “Stone House Church.” Church volunteer Li Zhewen said the renovation created “a much, much better environment for evangelization.” In the past, he said, the electric wiring inside the church was messy, and some of the light bulbs did not work. The church now has large crystal chandeliers in place of the dim light bulbs.

Edith Cahansa, a cathedral choir member who teaches English in Guangzhou, said the “big church can now accommodate more people.” For two years while the cathedral was renovated, people had to squeeze into a temporary 840-square-yard chapel.

Ms. Cahansa told UCA News she admired the newly installed stained-glass windows that were designed and produced in the Philippines, her home country. The windows contain 98 glass panes portraying Bible stories and saints.

Father Joseph Huang Bingzhang of the Shantou Diocese said when he was studying at the minor seminary in the cathedral compound in the 1980s, a window pane fell to the ground during Mass. “A church is not only for worshipping God but also must be a safe place for the faithful,” he said.

The priest, chairman of the Guangdong provincial Catholic Patriotic Association, said he believes the renovated cathedral could raise the profile of the church in Chinese society.

“It is a testimony to church history,” he said.

A Chinese church worker told UCA News that Catholics are grateful for the government’s support of the renovation, since there are not many Catholics in Guangzhou, about 80 miles northwest of Hong Kong. Without government funding, the project would not have materialized, she said.

The municipal government contributed about 80 percent of the total renovation cost, said Bishop-designate Gan, who was recently approved by the Vatican as the bishop of Guangzhou.

Catholic schools consortium appoints first director

The Mid-Atlantic Catholic Schools Consortium (MACSC) appointed its first executive director, Dr. Mary Ellen Hrutka, former vice provost and dean of the School of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Maryland University College. The Archdiocese of Baltimore is one of six mid-atlantic dioceses in the newly formed MACSC, whose mission is to make Catholic schools the schools of choice for all Catholic families and to find solutions to common challenges shared by Catholic schools within the six archdioceses in the areas of funding, leadership and governance.

The consortium developed in response to the U.S. Bishops’ call in 2005 for “the entire Catholic community” to take ownership of the enterprise of Catholic education.

Dr. Ronald Valenti, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, said, “The best way to address issues is collectively. We can no longer be working in a vacuum. With Mary Ellen on board, with her education insights, she certainly will help us achieve our goals.” As executive director, Dr. Hrutka will be MACSC’s strategic and operational leader, responsible for implementing its mission, goals, objectives, and policy agenda. She is a parishioner of St. John the Baptist, Silver Spring.

“I am delighted,” said Cardinal William H. Keeler, “that Mary Ellen Hrutka, who has served already Catholic schools so well as a member of the archdiocese of Washington School Board, is taking the lead in directing this important project.”

Calvert Hall teens volunteer at reservation

In the below freezing weather Jan. 27 to Feb. 3, six students and two chaperones from Calvert Hall College High School, Baltimore, traveled to the Blackfeet Indian reservation in Montana to spend a week teaching children and learning the culture at the Christian Brothers school, San Miguel.

While the snow-covered mountains and flat fields that seemed to go on for miles were an amazing sight to see, the reservation itself was not as pleasing to the eye. Signs of poverty were evident on the reservation, which was littered with trash while packs of dogs ran wild. According to Marc Parisi, campus minister for Calvert Hall, some 10,000 people live on the reservation – many of them in run-down trailers with car tires lying on the roof.

The five seniors and one junior from Calvert Hall were on a mission to learn about the Blackfeet Indians, help the students of San Miguel and experience something outside of Maryland and their comfort zone.

“How many opportunities do you have to go to Montana and work on an Indian reservation?” said senior Pat Lambdin, who said he has always been interested in Native American history and culture.

The small group lodged in the school gymnasium on foam mattresses and sleeping bags while heavy winds swirled outside. The men woke at five of seven each morning to make breakfast and lunch and to prepare for the day. When the students arrived at 8 a.m. the young men assisted them with their studies, particularly math. Most of the children do not leave school until 4:30 p.m. so the Calvert Hall students would play basketball, music or do art projects with them.

After dinner the six students listened to presentations on the economics, spirituality and life on the reservation.

“I now have a better understanding of their culture,” said Mr. Lambdin, 18.

Bobby Herster-Dudley, 18, said his faith helped him serve as a role model for the children in the San Miguel School. Feeling like a big brother, the teen encouraged the children to pursue a higher education. He told them of his own experiences and challenged them to lead an alcohol and drug free existence.

“I learned how good we have it here, some children don’t even have running water,” said the high school senior. “I think we learned a lot about ourselves, too.”

Senior Nick Ibello found it difficult to watch the children come to school and then not want to go home because they were being abused or neglected.

“What struck me was the challenge they had in dealing with their poverty,” said Mr. Ibello. “I learned to strive to be more open-minded and not make stereotypes just by looking at someone.”

Mr. Parisi said that as a teacher, it is “neat to see (the students) still learning even when they aren’t the students.”

They learned about themselves as young men of faith,” he said.

Father Martin Nocchi, a chaperone on the trip and director of the Monsignor O’Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, said he thinks the young men learned that the American way is not the only way. He said this experience changes a person’s life and they will start to look at people a little differently now.

“My favorite part was just working with these six guys and helping make the connection between faith and what we say and what we do,” said Father Nocchi. “It was good for them to be put in a place where we were the minority.”

Mr. Ibello said he wanted to be a “presence” for the children. In the beginning of the week the students were stand-offish toward the eight visitors but before they left they had started to open up and became very attached to the men that had been helping them.

“I thought I was there for a reason. We were all guided by a spirit the whole time,” said Mr. Lambdin. “It was a blessing we were able to go.”

Death penalty foes hail Tennessee governor’s moratorium

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Death penalty opponents in Tennessee are applauding Gov. Phil Bredesen’s decision to temporarily halt state executions to study the state’s protocol for carrying out death sentences, but they say it “doesn’t go nearly far enough.”

Alex Wiesendanger, associate director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing, called the move “a great first step,” but said “a full study of the entire system is needed” beyond the 90-day study of the state’s death penalty procedures.

The Tennessee Catholic Public Policy Commission is also among those pushing for a more wide-ranging moratorium.

Announcing the moratorium at a press conference Feb. 1, Bredesen said he is a death penalty supporter, but believes that “it is incumbent on the state to carry out these sentences constitutionally and appropriately.”

He also noted that “there did not appear to be any difficulties” with the executions of Robert Glen Coe in 2000 or of Sedley Allen last June, the only two executions carried out in the state since 1960.

The moratorium grants a reprieve to four death-row inmates scheduled to die during the 90-day study period. They are: Michael Boyd, Edward Jerome Harbison, Daryl Keith Holton and Pervis T. Payne.

Bredesen’s moratorium announcement came as the state faced a federal court challenge to its lethal injection process. The decision also coincided with recent botched executions in several states and an “increasing public awareness of the failings of the death penalty system in Tennessee and elsewhere,” according to Wiesendanger.

During the moratorium, which will expire May 2, Bredesen wants the state’s commissioner of correction to initiate “a comprehensive review of the manner in which death sentences are administered in Tennessee,” and to research and perform an analysis of the best practices used by other states. Bredesen also asked the commissioner to “establish and provide to me new protocols and related written procedures related to administering death sentences in Tennessee, both by lethal injection and electrocution.”

The study will focus solely on how death sentences are carried out, and will not address what death penalty opponents see as a myriad of other problems with the system.

“The people of Tennessee deserve a capital punishment system that they can trust,” said the Rev. Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. “Whether you are talking about the accuracy of convictions, the fairness of the application, the financial cost to taxpayers or the execution procedure itself, our current system completely fails to meet this test.”

The coalition will be pushing for a more far-reaching moratorium when it convenes for the second annual Justice Day on the Hill in March. Wiesendanger said he thinks that “chances are good” that an expanded moratorium bill will be passed because more people are realizing that the state’s current death penalty system “fails to meet the basic standards of justice.”

On its Web site the Tennessee Catholic Public Policy Commission, which will sponsor the annual Catholic Day on the Hill April 11, states: “Keeping with the long and consistent teaching of our faith respecting the dignity of all human life, we oppose laws that legitimize or support abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment.”

“As a part of our pro-life commitment, we encourage solutions to violent crime that reflect the dignity of the human person, urging our nation to abandon the use of capital punishment,” the commission says. “Respect for human life and dignity is the necessary first step in building a civilization of life and love.”