Year in Review: Presidential election caps dramatic year; economy a major issue

WASHINGTON – The election of Sen. Barack Obama as president Nov. 4 climaxed a dramatic political year in which the faltering economy ultimately steered voters’ decisions.

While Obama’s election was historic in many ways, the campaign between Obama, an Illinois Democrat, and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona had its own particular religious angles of interest.

Before it came down to voters who were worried primarily about the economy, the campaign had veered off into stories about the clergy who advised or endorsed the candidates and disagreements among some in the about their moral obligations in voting.

The election also brought ballot measures on which the Catholic Church weighed in, including those about same-sex marriage, regulations on abortion, assisted suicide, embryonic stem-cell research, gambling and taxes to aid the needy.

At the top of the ballot, President-elect Obama won a slightly higher percentage of votes among Catholics, 54 percent to 45 percent for Sen. McCain, than among all voters, 53 percent of whom chose Obama while 46 percent voted for McCain.

Latinos were a significant factor in the Catholic portion of the vote, with 67 percent supporting Obama. Like white voters overall, white Catholics more strongly supported McCain over Obama, by 52 percent to 47 percent. Latinos make up about 40 percent of U.S. Catholics.

In the new year analysts will still be debating how much Catholic voters were influenced by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ election guide, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” and by the statements of some bishops who warned that voting should be based on the candidates’ record on abortion. One who took such a stand, Bishop F. Martino of Scranton, Pa., told the people of his diocese that abortion outweighed all other issues in voting. At a parish political forum, he said the USCCB document was not relevant in his diocese.

“Faithful Citizenship” emphasized the importance of the abortion issue in voting. But it also left open the possibility that Catholics might in good conscience support candidates who do not favor overturning Roe v. Wade, the court ruling legalizing abortion, if the voter rejects that position but has other morally grave reasons to support that candidate.

In Lackawanna County, where Scranton is located, 63 percent of voters supported Obama, compared to 55 percent of all Pennsylvania voters.

Scranton also is the childhood hometown of Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who will become the first Catholic vice president. At the USCCB meeting in November, Bishop Martino said he “cannot have a vice president-elect coming to Scranton, saying he learned his values there, when those values are utterly opposed to the teaching of the church.”

Biden’s own bishop in Wilmington, Del., Bishop W. Francis Malooly, said he “won’t politicize the Eucharist” by denying Communion over political views.

Groups such as Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, the Matthew 25 Network, Catholics United and Democrats for Life had a significant national role in arguing that voting based on Christian morals was more complex than only seeking to make abortion illegal.

Two prominent pro-life Catholic law professors, Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., and Nicholas Cafardi, dean emeritus and professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, came under fire for their endorsements of Obama.

Cafardi, who is both a canon lawyer and civil lawyer, resigned from the board of trustees of Ohio’s Franciscan University of Steubenville after writing that a committed Catholic voter should consider a long list of “intrinsically evil acts” that includes but is not limited to abortion. Kmiec, former dean of the law school at The Catholic University of America in Washington and a Republican who helped craft the Reagan administration’s legal challenges to Roe v. Wade, wrote a book explaining his support for Obama, “Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Questions About Barack Obama.”

He argued that after more than 30 years of the pro-life movement focusing almost entirely on trying to reverse Roe v. Wade, with little progress or hope for success, he was prepared to take Obama at his word that he would work to reduce abortions by measures such as providing better health care and social services aid for the poor.

At one point, Kmiec was denied Communion during a Mass for a Catholic business group by a who chastised him from the pulpit. The priest later apologized, after the intervention of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

At the annual USCCB general meeting in mid-November, the bishops approved a statement on the election. In it they said they looked forward to working with Obama, but went on to warn against interpreting the election outcome as “a referendum on abortion” and said “aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans.”

Earlier in the year, McCain and Obama both had to distance themselves from ministers who stirred controversy.

Obama and his wife severed ties with their Chicago church, Trinity United Church of Christ, after videos of bombastic sermons by its former pastor, the Rev. Wright, were posted on YouTube.

A Chicago archdiocesan priest, Father Pfleger, was required to take a leave of absence from his pastoral duties at St. Sabina’s Parish after, as a guest preacher at Trinity, he made disparaging remarks about Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

McCain rejected the endorsement of two televangelists. The Rev. John Hagee, pastor of a San Antonio megachurch, had described the Catholic Church as “the great whore” and a “false cult system,” among other statements.

McCain also repudiated the backing of the Rev. Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio, who has described Islam as the “Antichrist.”

Beyond the presidential race, in states where it was an election issue, voters agreed with the Catholic Church’s stance against legalizing gay marriage.

Voters in California, Arizona and Florida approved changes to state constitutions to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Connecticut voters rejected an effort to call a constitutional convention to overturn that state’s prevailing Supreme Court ruling that allows same-sex marriage.

On other statewide issues, positions taken by Catholic Church leaders were on the losing side. California rejected a proposal requiring parental notification before a minor could have an abortion, and South Dakota voters rejected a ban on nearly all abortions.

Voters in Washington made theirs the second state in the union to allow physician- assisted suicide. And Michigan voters agreed to expand embryonic stem-cell research and barred laws that would limit such research or treatments.

Gambling initiatives opposed by the local church in Maryland and Ohio passed, allowing slot machines in the former and a privately owned casino in southwestern Ohio.

Measures passed in two Missouri counties to raise money for children’s services with a sales tax increase. A Massachusetts effort to repeal the state income tax failed. The local church had supported each of those outcomes as necessary to help meet the needs of the poor.

Pope gives Curia treats, heavy 2008 analysis to chew on for Christmas

VATICAN CITY – Benedict XVI gave his Roman Curia officials the traditional bottle of “spumante” and panettone cake for Christmas, and he added a gift they can chew on for days: a seven-page speech on the Holy Spirit’s presence in the church events of 2008.

As every year, the pope met Dec. 22 with his top administrators to exchange Christmas greetings and review the year as it draws to a close. His talk was not a simple “Best of ‘08” list, however, but a probing analysis of what lies behind some of the church’s most visible activities.

In particular, he offered his own take on two issues that prompted headlines in recent months, but whose meaning the pope evidently believes is misunderstood: the international World Youth Day celebrations and the Vatican’s increasingly strong pronouncements on ecology.

The pope recalled his trip to Australia for the World Youth Day mega-gathering in July, where he presided over events with 200,000 young people from around the world. Fears of paralyzed traffic or public disturbances proved unfounded, he said, and the encounter turned out to be a “festival of joy.”

But what kind of celebration was it? he asked. Some view these World Youth Day gatherings as the church’s version of a rock concert, where the pope is just the main attraction, he said. Others, including Catholics, wonder whether they really have any lasting impact on the participants.

The pope responded by saying these objections don’t take into account the power of the Holy Spirit. It was typical of the academic pontiff that in explaining this point he quoted first the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who once said throwing a party wasn’t as hard as finding people able to attend it with joy.

Then he quoted St. Paul, who said joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit – something abundantly evident at World Youth Day. He pointed out that the Australian assembly was the culmination of a long spiritual pilgrimage for the young participants, one focused intensely on Christ. “So even the pope is not the star around which all this turns,” he said.

Those who describe the youth encounters as the Catholic variant of rock festivals, he added, are really trying to remove the all-important “question of God” from the discussion.

In a similar way, the pope said, the church’s teaching on ecology needs to be understood as arising from God – the “creator Spirit” – who made the earth and its creatures with an “intelligent structure” that demands respect. Because of faith, the church has a responsibility for protecting the created world and for proclaiming publicly this environmental responsibility, he said.

The pope then explained why the human being must be at the center of the church’s ecological concern.

“The church must protect not only the earth, the water and the air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. It must also protect man against self-destruction,” he said. “The tropical forests certainly deserve our protection, but man as a creature does not deserve any less.”

By “self-destruction,” the pope said he meant “contempt for the Creator,” and he said examples could be found in so-called “gender” issues today. He offered a case in point: Marriage as a permanent union between a man and a woman was something instituted by God as “the sacrament of creation.”

Although the pope didn’t specifically talk about same-sex marriage, the meaning was clear enough to prompt some unusual headlines about rain forests and homosexuals.

The pope said the Holy Spirit was the protagonist of another important event of 2008, the Synod of Bishops on Scripture. The synod emphasized that, far from being a dead letter, the word of God is alive and is speaking to contemporary Christians in a modern Pentecost, he said.

In ending his speech, the pope returned to St. Paul’s description of joy as a fruit of the Spirit. The pope underlined a point he’s made occasionally throughout the year: that Christianity should be seen not as a religion of rules and prohibitions, but as a source of joy that springs from Christ’s salvation. “He is joy. Joy is the gift in which all other gifts are summed up. It’s the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with oneself, which can only happen when one is in harmony with God and his creation,” he said.

The nature of joy is to radiate, and to want to communicate itself to others – and in a nutshell, that’s the missionary spirit of the church, he said.

He left his Roman Curia members with his Christmas wish: that this kind of joy stay alive and spread through a world filled with tribulations.

Father Vasquez named St. Lawrence pastor

The tiny church overflows with parishioners.

That’d be a good problem to have for many parishes, but it can make for a tight squeeze during Masses at St. Lawrence Martyr, Jessup, said Father Juan Rubio Vazquez, who was appointed pastor of the church effective Jan. 1.

The church, just a mile outside Fort Meade, stands to grow considerably with a population boom expected with federal military base realignment, said Father Vazquez, 40.

Accommodating the coming growth in the parish will be his biggest immediate challenge, said Father Vazquez, a Trinitarian priest who is an associate pastor of the church.

“This is a very old church so it’s been this size since when this area was all farmers 100 years ago,” Father Vazquez said. “The building fits only 150 people, while the community is growing very fast.”

The parish, with 350 to 400 families, has two Masses Saturdays and three on Sundays.

Trinitarians, who, Father Vazquez said, are called not only to preach but to “witness a way of life” reflecting the Gospel, have staffed the parish since the late 1970s.

That includes works of charity to help the poor and outreach to prisoners at the Maryland Correctional Institution and the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.

Father Vazquez said that the church looks forward to bringing together people in the community and welcoming new parishioners,

One of nine children, Father Vazquez grew up in Michoacan, Mexico, and emigrated to Texas when he was 19.

He studied at Washington Theological and was ordained in 1999 at Holy Trinity Monastery in Pikesville. He also has served a year as a priest at St. Bridgette on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, then at Our Lady of Sorrows in Victoria, Texas.

After that, he served four years as associate pastor of St. Lawrence Martyr, then returned to Texas for a one-year stint as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows before coming back to St. Lawrence.

Year in Review: Stem-cell debate quieter in 2008, but conscience protections waver

WASHINGTON – In the year marking the 40th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae,” Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on human life and birth control, discussion of bioethical issues was relatively muted, but 2009 is not expected to follow suit. The year began with high hopes that discoveries by research teams in Japan and the United States in November 2007 would make stem-cell research involving the destruction of human embryos obsolete. The teams found that human skin cells could be reprogrammed to work as effectively as embryonic stem cells, thus negating the need to destroy embryos in the name of science.

But the findings seemed to have little effect on those already committed to embryonic stem-cell research.

Despite a concerted campaign by the Catholic Church and others in the state to oppose it, Michigan voters approved a ballot question expanding state funding of embryo-destroying stem-cell research.

And the two major U.S. political parties each nominated candidates for president who pledged to lift the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. President-elect Barack Obama was expected to make more funds available for such research soon after his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Midway through the year, at their June meeting in Orlando, Fla., the U.S. bishops approved a new document calling the use of human embryos in stem-cell research “gravely immoral” and unnecessary.

“While human life is threatened in many ways in our society, the destruction of human embryos for stem-cell research confronts us with an issue of respect for life in a stark new way,” said the seven-page policy statement.

“The issue of stem-cell research does not force us to choose between science and ethics, much less between science and religion,” the document adds. “It presents a choice as to how our society will pursue scientific and medical progress.”

As the year drew to a close, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an instruction warning that certain recent developments in stem-cell research, gene therapy and embryonic experimentation violate moral principles and reflect an attempt by man to “take the place of his Creator.”

The latest advances raise serious questions of moral complicity for researchers and other biotech professionals, who have a duty to refuse to use biological material obtained by unethical means, said the 32-page document titled “Dignitas Personae” (“The Dignity of a Person”), issued Dec. 12.

But in the United States, conscience protections for medical personnel and health care institutions were at risk.

In August, the California Supreme Court upheld the rights of a lesbian to be artificially inseminated despite the religious objections of her physician, a decision that officials of the California Catholic Conference said violated the physician’s rights of religious freedom and freedom of speech.

“No one has the right to demand a nonemergency medical procedure from someone who finds that procedure morally unacceptable – or religiously objectionable,” said Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry of Los Angeles following the court’s ruling in North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group v. Guadalupe T. Benitez.

The debate over conscience rights also continued in Wisconsin, after a judge in the state upheld the official reprimand of a Catholic pharmacist who refused to dispense a contraceptive drug to a college student or transfer the prescription to another pharmacy.

In a March 24 decision, 3rd District Court Judge Michael Hoover rejected pharmacist Neil Noesen’s appeal of sanctions imposed on him by the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board in 2005. In June the state Supreme Court declined to review the case.

However, Kim Wadas, associate director for education and health care at the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, said Hoover acknowledged in his decision that conscience rights under the state constitution are even broader than those granted by the U.S. Constitution, an affirmation she called a step in the right direction.

A move by the Department of Health and Human Services to guarantee the conscience rights of health care providers and institutions remained in limbo, however, as the new Obama administration prepared to take office.

Proposed regulations advanced by the administration of President George W. Bush would have required federally funded institutions to certify that they comply with laws protecting provider conscience rights. The regulations drew strong criticism from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other groups that support legal abortion, who said they would “permit institutions as well as individuals to refuse to provide women access not only to abortion but to contraceptive services and information.”

The abortion issue also played a role in the 2008 presidential elections, when some bishops told Catholics they should not vote for Obama because of his support for keeping abortion legal. Other Catholics said the Democratic Party would do more to reduce the number of abortions than overturning Roe v. Wade would.

During the campaign Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic vice- presidential nominee Joseph Biden, both Catholics, drew rebukes for their comments on abortion that Catholic leaders said misrepresented the church’s stand.

Conscience regulations to become law just before Obama takes office

WASHINGTON – With their Dec. 19 publication in the Federal Register, regulations that protect the conscience rights of health care providers are scheduled to become law two days before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

The regulations are designed to ensure “that Department of Health and Human Services funds do not support coercive or discriminatory policies or practices in violation of federal law,” according to the title of the final rule.

Deirdre McQuade, assistant director for policy and communications in the Office of Pro-Life Activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, praised the regulations in a Dec. 18 statement.

“Individuals and institutions committed to healing should not be required to take the very human life that they are dedicated to protecting,” she said. “The enforcement of federal laws to protect their freedom of conscience is long overdue.”

The regulations support three conscience provisions passed by Congress as long ago as the 1970s and as recently as 2004. They stipulate that no federal funds be given to health care institutions that require providers to participate in abortions or sterilizations or discriminate against those who decline to participate because of their religious or moral beliefs.

The final rule notes that “religious and faith-based organizations have a long tradition of providing medical care in the United States, and they continue to do so today.”

“A trend that isolates and excludes some among various religious, cultural and/or ethnic groups from participating in the delivery of health care is especially troublesome when considering current and anticipated shortages of health care professionals in many medical disciplines and regions of the country,” it added.

Ms. McQuade said that “Catholic health care providers will especially welcome this mark of respect for the excellent life-affirming care they provide to all in need.”

But she added that Catholics are not the only ones who oppose “the deliberate destruction of nascent human life.”

“All health care providers should be free to serve their patients without violating their most deeply held moral and religious convictions in support of life,” Ms. McQuade said.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is organizing opposition to the rule, saying it threatens patients’ rights and would restrict health care access.

“We look forward to working with President-elect Obama and leaders in Congress to repeal this disastrous rule and expand patients’ access to full health care information and services – not limit it,” said Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood president, in a Dec. 18 statement.

Meanwhile, in another conscience-related decision, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Dec. 18 that individual pharmacists and pharmacy owners have legal standing to challenge Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s 2005 emergency order requiring them to dispense the emergency contraceptive marketed as Plan B or leave the profession. Two lower courts had held that they did not have standing.

Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, called the decision “a huge victory for the freedom of conscience of all health care providers.”

“Pharmacists now have proper recourse against a discriminatory law that would force them to check their constitutional rights at the workplace door,” she said in a statement.

Conservative political activist Paul Weyrich dies at age 66

FAIRFAX, Va. – Conservative political activist Paul Weyrich, who was credited with coining the term “Moral Majority” and was considered a chief architect of the modern conservative movement, died Dec. 18 at age 66 after a lengthy illness. He lived in Fairfax.

A funeral Mass for him Dec. 22 at Holy Transfiguration Melkite Catholic Church was to be followed by burial in Fairfax Memorial Park. Mr. Weyrich was a deacon in the Melkite Church.

According to The New York Times, his family did not release a cause of death but associates said he had suffered from diabetes and other health problems over the years. In 2005 his legs were amputated at the knee. He suffered a spinal injury in 1996 that left him confined to a wheelchair.

“The nation has lost a treasure in Paul Weyrich, and I have lost a friend,” said Father Frank Pavone, national director of for Life, in a Dec. 18 statement. “Paul was a deacon of Jesus Christ. He inspired me, and millions, to appreciate the power that the political process in America provides us, to protect the nation’s key values,” the priest said.

Born in Racine, Wis., Oct. 7, 1942, Mr. Weyrich was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison when he became involved in politics. He was active in the Racine County Young Republicans, 1961-63, and was involved with Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign in 1964.

Mr. Weyrich, who left the university before graduating, worked in journalism as a political reporter for what is now the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel daily newspaper. He also worked in television and radio and had a stint as news director of a Denver TV station.

In 1967, he got a as press secretary to a U.S. Republican senator from Colorado, which is where he first met beer magnate Joseph Coors. In 1973, with financing provided by Coors, Mr. Weyrich and Edwin Feulner founded the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank.

Over the next two decades, Mr. Weyrich founded, co-founded or held prominent roles in a number of other political organizations, including the American Legislative Change Council, an organization of state legislators.

It was Mr. Weyrich who coined the phrase “Moral Majority” that the Rev. Jerry Falwell would choose for the faith-based political organization with which the Baptist minister was most closely associated. Mr. Weyrich met Rev. Falwell in the late 1970s.

In a May 2007 interview shortly after the minister’s death, Mr. Weyrich told Catholic News Service that one success of the Moral Majority was the change it fostered in how Catholics and evangelical Protestants worked with each other.

He recalled an event at an arena in Texas to support a minister who had been booted off his radio station because of preaching against homosexuality. Rev. Falwell introduced Mr. Weyrich by pointing out that “he’s a Catholic,” and adding, “if any of you want to leave, go ahead.” Perhaps five people stood up among the thousands in the arena. Mr. Weyrich said he saw that as “a change in the atmosphere from the time where Catholics and evangelical Protestants almost could not be in the same room with each other.”

Mr. Weyrich said Rev. Falwell once told him that if they were discussing they would “probably come to bloody blows,” but in discussing politics “we were blood brothers.”

The Moral Majority was not always on the side of Catholic Church leaders, especially regarding some of the hot-button issues of the 1980s, such as U.S. policy toward Central America and government programs to aid the poor. For example, one organization affiliated with Mr. Weyrich criticized the U.S. Catholic bishops’ 1983 pastoral letter on war and peace.

“Moral courage was a defining trait of Paul himself,” said Mr. Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation. “On any policy issue that turned on a core principle, he never failed to take a public stand – regardless of how that stand might affect his professional or personal relationships.”

He called Mr. Weyrich a “a visionary, a builder, a moral and political leader” and said “America is a better and stronger country because of his contributions.”

Mr. Weyrich is survived by his wife of 45 years, Joyce; two daughters, Dawn Ceol of Haymarket, Va., and Diana Pascoe of Honolulu; three sons, Peter of Alexandria, Va., Stephen of Fairfax Station, Va., and Andrew of Fairfax; and 13 grandchildren.

Blair praised for his Yale seminar examining globalization, religion

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Tony Blair has won praise – even from those who have publicly disagreed with him on the Iraq War – for a seminar about the interplay between globalization and religious faith that he just finished teaching this semester at Yale University.

But during the course he had little to say about his own faith as a member of the Catholic Church since 2007.

Aside from praising the Catholic Church’s “fantastic work on the ground” on issues of interfaith relations, Mr. Blair’s comments to students, reporters and in a public address in New Haven at Yale’s Battell Chapel Dec. 11 “stayed on message” and focused on the theme of his teaching.

At the core of Mr. Blair’s thought is the idea that, far from experiencing the decline that many secularists expected decades ago, religious faith not only keenly matters today but its ethical values can and should be used to guide globalization in a more constructive way.

“Globalization shrinks the world and creates a more global community,” the former British prime minister told his seminar students in a “lessons learned” reflection he later shared in his public address.

As a result, Mr. Blair argued, “religious faith and globalization have to find ways to be at peace with each other so that globalization can be more peaceful and run better and more efficiently.”

“Globalization itself needs values, like trust, like justice,” Mr. Blair told students.

Those who watched Mr. Blair in action at Yale guessed that he didn’t talk about this own faith because the issue was of little interest to Americans, unlike the way it has intrigued the British public.

Recently, for example, The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London ran a story on an interview Mr. Blair did with the BBC on his religious faith with the headline: “Tony Blair to break his silence on religion.”

Another London newspaper, The Times, reported Dec. 13 that Mr. Blair told the BBC he regrets now that he did not discuss religion while he was prime minister, from 1997 to 2007, though he acknowledged that one reason he did not become a Catholic earlier was because of possible negative reaction in Great Britain.

It said he confirmed to the BBC that he and his wife, Cherie, herself a Catholic, were raising their children Catholic before he joined the church and that he had been attending Mass for more than two decades.

Harold Attridge, the Catholic lay dean of Yale Divinity School, said in an interview with Catholic News Service that Mr. Blair, who was confirmed as an Anglican while an undergraduate at Oxford University, briefly spoke to him about the subject and said he simply felt at home in the Catholic Church but could not, given the sensitivities of politics and tradition, join the church until he had left office.

Mr. Attridge said that while at Yale Mr. Blair was more interested in examining the issue of religious faith in a global context.

Miroslav Volf, the Croatian-born Christian theologian and the director of Yale’s Center for Faith and Culture who co-taught the seminar with Mr. Blair, said the issue of his Catholicism was discussed once in class and only marginally. He described Mr. Blair in lectures as “taking a ‘helicopter view’” of the issue of religion.

Daughters of Charity celebrate yearlong 2009 bicentennial of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

In a yearlong celebration titled The Seton Legacy of Charity, the Daughters of Charity, Emmitsburg province, will kick off the bicentennial of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Jan. 4, 2009.

Hundreds of visitors are expected to attend retreats, tours, liturgies and sessions to learn more about St. Elizabeth, the first native-born of the U.S. who founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, the first community of religious women in America.

The bicentennial year will close Jan. 4, 2010.

The past 200 years have witnessed the formation of six branches of the order, and the works of charity touching innumerable people. Followers of the saint have founded countless schools, health care institutions and social works, here and abroad.

The official observance will occur July 31-Aug. 2, 2009. Among the many activities are the premiere of a documentary about the saint and a live re-enactment of the early sisters arriving in Emmitsburg on a Conestoga wagon pulled by six horses, as they did 200 years earlier.

The Seton Legacy Garden will be blessed. Symbolically, the garden’s beautiful pathways extend behind the saint’s home, and her notable quotes are inscribed on bricks, pavers, benches and markers.

The 2009 celebration will provide “a wonderful opportunity to learn what a special person St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was,” said Sister Vincentia Goeb, director of heritage ministries and a Daughter of Charity.

2009 events for The Seton Legacy of Charity

For costs, times, registration and other event details, visit www.setonlegacy.org or call 301-447-6606.

Jan. 4: Opening of the bicentennial year

Feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton; 2:30 Mass; unveiling of collage; lighting ceremony. Public invited.

Feb. 9-15: Seton Legacy Guided Retreat

Retreat with sisters, colleagues and benefactors who share the mission of charity.

April 30: Middle School Leadership Day Middle school ambassadors focus on Mother Seton and current social justice issues; day ends with liturgy and commissioning of students.

May 1-3: Partners in Ministry Retreat

Retreat designed for sisters, colleagues and benefactors.

May 15-20: Seton Legacy Retreat Pilgrimage: Footsteps of Elizabeth Ann Seton

Reflective tour of Emmitsburg and Baltimore sites; virtual visit to New York and Leghorn, .

May 23: Medal Award Ceremony

Presentation of the Seton Medal to individuals. Open to public.

July 10-12: Partners in Ministry Retreat

July 10-12: Vincentian Experience 4: Elizabeth Ann Seton Pioneer and Prophet Event for college-age students interested in serving Christ in the poor and making a difference; Summit Lake Campground, July 10 p.m.-July 12 noon.

July 22: Mass of Thanksgiving for Sulpician community and Daughters of Charity

July 31-Aug. 2: Bicentennial Celebration Weekend

Opening ceremony, events marking journey of Elizabeth Ann Seton to Emmitsburg, day pilgrimages from Baltimore, bus tours, walking tour, premier of Seton Legacy DVD, blessing of Bicentennial Garden, liturgies, breakout sessions, live reenactment procession; basilica, gifts shops, and visitor center open

Nov. 1: Pilgrimage for high school students

Candlelight pilgrimage from Mount St. Mary’s University Grotto of Lourdes to Seton shrine; liturgy

Nov. 30-Dec. 4: Seton Legacy Guided Retreat

Conferences on life and spirituality of the saint, common prayer, liturgy, quiet reflection, sharing. Open to sisters and public.

Jan. 4, 2010: Bicentennial year closes with liturgy and celebrations recap

Blacks prepare to celebrate ‘Watch Night’

On New Year’s Eve, 1862, blacks waited anxiously, watching the clock and hoping the Emancipation Proclamation would, in fact, take effect at midnight.

Nearly 150 years later, black Catholics in the archdiocese maintain the tradition by observing “Watch Night,” when they await midnight with prayer, praise and song.

This year, Watch Night takes on added significance with the election of Barack Obama as America’s first black president.

“I think people feel so much that it’s such a historic moment and that they are personally witnessing it in their lives,” said Monsignor Damien Nalepa, pastor of St. Gregory the Great in West Baltimore. “You hear people saying that so much, that they’re so proud to be living in this moment for this. It generates hope for 2009.”

Monsignor Nalepa said the church will incorporate the election of President-elect Obama in the church’s Dec. 31 service.

St. Cecilia in West Baltimore also plans a Watch Night service, said the pastor, Vincentian Father Sylvester Peterka.

He said parishioners would welcome 2009 on their knees, asking God to be with them.

“We know that our freedom as children of the Lord comes from the Lord,” Father Peterka said, “and we always need to celebrate what God has given us.” He noted that blacks prayed on Dec. 31, 1862, for President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in certain states on New Year’s Day.

“There is great hope in this new year,” said Therese Wilson Favors, director of the archdiocese Office of African American Ministries. “As we celebrate coming into the new year, we continue to plant seeds among our people. We continue to follow Christ and remember that he said, ‘I come to give you life and give it to the full.’”

Many blacks, she said, will eat traditional Watch Night foods like collard greens, which symbolize prosperity for the coming year; and black-eyed peas, which symbolize looking ahead with hope.

But racism persists – in health care and the criminal justice system, for example, Ms. Favors said. And leaders must work to eliminate it, she said.

This year, the economic crisis also weighs heavily on the minds of many.

“I’m quite sure that will be in our prayers,” said Gwendolyn A. Lindsay, a parishioner at New All , Liberty Heights.

The new year also will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Knights of St. , a national, African-American lay Catholic organization. Four priests from the Baltimore-based Josephite religious order and three laymen started the group in Alabama.

After 46 years, Monsignor Moeller to retire Dec. 31

Monsignor George Moeller knows at some point during Christmas Mass at St. Margaret parish in Bel Air, he will think about it being his final one as an active priest. But, he’ll do his best not to get emotionally caught up in the moment. The Word of God- just as it has been for last 46 years- will be paramount.

“I’ve just got to concentrate on the beautiful message,” he said.

Monsignor Moeller will retire Dec. 31 after serving the last six years as “Senior Priest” at the Bel Air parish.

The former pastor of St. Joseph, Fullerton, St. , Baltimore and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Highlandtown, will say goodbye this weekend at receptions following Masses.

“I just want to thank them,” he said. “This great parish has been a real inspiration to me. It’s full of warm, faith-filled people.”

Monsignor Moeller said he will travel more and connect with friends he has missed in recent years. The desire to travel was stoked earlier this year when he went on a pilgrimage to the Marian sanctuaries of Lourdes and other shrines in France with 37 St. Margaret parishioners.

The trip took on a deeper meaning as he visited the grave of his brother, who died in battle during World War II in Normandy. It was the first time he had visited the grave. Before he had private time to reflect, parishioners prayed with him.

“It was a very nice moment,” he said.

Source: Israel, Vatican eager to finalize talks before papal visit

JERUSALEM – Israeli and Vatican negotiators appear eager to finalize negotiations on fiscal and property matters prior to the pope’s visit to the Holy Land, a source close to the negotiations said. “Both the state of Israel and the representatives of the Holy See are very interested to finalize this,” he said, adding that though he was unaware of any official policy, the pope’s visit, reportedly in May, might be acting as an impetus for both sides to finish up negotiations.

In a statement following a plenary session at the Vatican Dec. 18, the negotiators said they have scheduled another plenary session for April 23 and four meetings of their working group which will take place starting in January with “the intent on both sides of accelerating the process and reaching an agreement as soon as possible.”

The statement called the December meeting “significant and useful.”

“Everybody is tired,” said the source, who wished to remain anonymous. “The visit by the pope may be the time to finalize it.”

Archbishop Antonio Franco, the Vatican nuncio to Israel and the Palestinian territories, could not be reached for comment.

The ongoing negotiations to safeguard the fiscal status of the church in Israel and to protect holy places and other church properties have lasted for almost 15 years since the signing of the Fundamental Agreement in 1993. Full diplomatic relations were established in 1994 and three years later the parties signed an agreement that permitted the Catholic Church autonomy to run its own internal affairs, subject to Israeli laws. They now are trying to reach an agreement settling questions regarding the tax status and other financial questions related to Catholic institutions in Israel.

From the beginning of the negotiations in 1994, Vatican officials have asked Israel to:

– Guarantee Catholic access to juridical due process through the Israeli court system when property disputes arise. Israel’s position has been that church property disputes are matters to be handled by the government, not the courts.

– Formally extend the exemption from taxation enjoyed by church properties and institutions before Israeli statehood. – Return confiscated church properties. The most discussed property has been the site of a church shrine, destroyed in the 1950s, in Caesarea.

Number of sex abuse claimants reaches 288 in Fairbanks Diocese

FAIRBANKS, Alaska – The number of people claiming to have been sexually abused by Catholic priests and other church workers in the Fairbanks Diocese over the past six decades more than doubled after the diocese filed for bankruptcy protection in March.

The diocese said 288 people have made abuse claims against more than 40 individuals, with most of the cases relating to childhood sexual abuse. Because of the bankruptcy, victims had faced a Dec. 2 deadline to be included in the group that will be compensated by the diocese for the abuse.

When the diocese announced in February that it would seek bankruptcy protection, it said it was unable to reach a financial settlement with 140 people who had filed about 150 claims against the diocese. The most recent abuse asserted in a claim took place in the 1980s, although some cases go back to the 1950s.

Filing for bankruptcy is “the best way to bring all parties together and to provide for fair and equitable treatment of all who have been harmed,” said Fairbanks Bishop Donald J. Kettler in announcing the decision. “I am legally and morally bound to both fulfill our mission and to pursue healing for those injured.”

The bankruptcy court had set the Dec. 2 deadline for claimants of alleged abuse to file claims against the Fairbanks Diocese. Ads were placed by the diocese on Alaska public radio and in newspapers throughout Alaska, Washington state, Oregon and in USA Today to notify people about the deadline. Ronnie Rosenberg, human resources director for the Fairbanks Diocese, said more than half of the claims were against one man, Joseph Lundowski, who has been described in lawsuits as a deacon and a Trappist or Jesuit “monk” but was actually a lay volunteer, according to Rosenberg.

Lundowski, who was believed to be from Chicago, worked in several parishes in the Fairbanks Diocese from about 1959 to 1975. It is not known whether he is living or dead.

The Society of Jesus reportedly paid $50 million in 2007 to settle lawsuits filed by 110 Alaskans against 12 Jesuit priests and three other church workers, including Lundowski.

The nation’s largest diocese geographically, Fairbanks covers more than 400,000 square miles.

Other dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy to resolve clergy sex abuse claims are San Diego, Spokane, Wash., Davenport, Iowa, and the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore. Portland, Davenport and Spokane have emerged from bankruptcy.