The Catholic New World - 2004 Archives

2004 Archives

December 19, 2004
Mercy finds a home
Statue from Chicago now graces a wounded Rwanda parish
An 18-foot bronze statue of the Divine Mercy Jesus that once toured Chicago parishes has a new home in Rwanda, the African nation still reeling from a horrible genocide.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

December 5, 2004
Maryville head named
Franciscan Sister Catherine Ryan
Maryville Academy, once the largest provider of residential care for children in the country, has its first new executive director in more than 30 years.

Stem cell plan opposed
Catholic leaders from around Illinois are mobilizing to fight a proposal for the state to fund $1 billion in stem cell research over the next 10 years.

Fighting disease with faith
Catholics bring faith to diabetes efforts in urban, rural areas
Bill Grimes, a physician’s assistant and nurse practitioner, works out of a tiny storefront space on a street in downtown Owingsville, Ky., population 1,488. The community is more than 95 percent white, according to U.S. Census Bureau, with a median household income about half the median income for the country and more than 25 percent of its people in poverty.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

November 21, 2004
Reconnecting
Cardinal George to again dedicate archdiocese to Mary as patroness
For Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago, this year’s celebration of the Feast of Immaculate Conception will have a double significance.

Second abuse audit completed; archdiocese compliant with charter
The Archdiocese of Chicago has received renewed acknowledgement of its efforts to fight clerical sexual abuse in the just-completed second round of audits assigned by the U.S. bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection.
Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

November 7, 2004
Inspiration from above
The artist in the attic benefits both art and parish
The image of a lonely artist, isolated in an attic studio, creating masterpieces almost out of a vacuum, doesn’t fit Joseph Malham.

Planting hope to root out violence
Father Tom Walsh had already been at Presentation Parish in North Lawndale for 10 years on the morning when Christopher Green got shot.
Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

October 24, 2004
Catholics head to polls
Election guidance comes from all around
Catholics, along with other Americans, will troop to the polls Nov. 2 to elect a president for the next four years. But perhaps never before has so much information — overt and subtle—about how to vote and even for whom been directed at Catholic voters in a national election.

Eucharistic Congress focuses on faith’s center
Martyrs lay down their lives, missionaries travel far from home, virgins have moral fortitude, priests and religious have integrity, husbands and wives live in a spiritually-based marriage. The strength to do all these things, said Cardinal Francis Arinze, flows from the Eucharist, “the fountain from which all life flows.”
Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

October 10, 2004
Just say ‘yes!’
Chastity-education programs get a good response
Forget “just say no.” The Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Chicago wants teens and young people to say yes—yes to chastity, that is.

Obituaries

Observations

Parish Pride

September 26, 2004
Four Catholic centers’ goal: boost West Side presence
For Father Daniel McCormack, pastor of St. Agatha Parish, plans to center Catholic life on the West Side on four geographically chosen sites mean a stronger church presence in the African-American neighborhoods there. >

Making -- and remembering -- transplant history
When Dr. James W. West cut into the still-warm body of a woman to remove a kidney and transplant it into a waiting patient, he didn’t really know what to expect.
Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries Observations Parish Pride

September 12, 2004
Stewardship and schools
Chicago parish takes a bold ‘leap of faith’
As Catholic school students returned to classrooms all over the archdiocese, their parents reached for their checkbooks to start paying tuition again.

Parish Pride

August 29, 2004
‘Building’ the future
Zacchaeus House forming souls and lives
A little more than a year ago, U.C. Davis was looking for a way to climb back into society.
Recently released from the penitentiary, he wanted to find a way to support himself and his children. But without a job or work skills, he didn’t know where to start.

Interview

Observations

August 15, 2004
‘A sad day’
Bishop Edwin Conway, vicar general dies
Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago mourned the death of Bishop Edwin M. Conway Aug. 9.
Many share memories of a beloved bishop
In the hours after his death, Bishop Edwin M. Conway was remembered as a real priest, a soldier for Christ, a model, a friend and “the best brother a guy could have.”

Parish Pride

August 1, 2004
Justice’s overriding goal
‘Right relationships’ to end poverty, violence
Genny O’Toole of St. Athanasius Parish in Evanston is a lawyer who defends people being evicted from their homes. But seeing the challenges faced by so many people who lack the most basic resources made O’Toole believe she should do more.

Parish Pride

July 18, 2004
Mission possible
Called to serve: from Chicago to Honduras Trio will follow their faith to help orphans in Central America If there’s one thing Erika Myette isn’t looking forward to, it’s the creepy crawlies.

Changing face of mission work
When Holy Spirit Missionary Sister Maria Burke arrived in New Guinea in the 1970s, it was the end of the colonial era. Things were easier for missionaries then, she said, because most people did as the
missionaries—and their colonial rulers—told them to.

Young adults get faith primer
At a parish near you: Theology on Tap opens 23rd season
There are the stories of James and the Giant Peach. And Jack and the Beanstalk. But there’s also the tale of John and the Garbage Can.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

July 4, 2004
Closer to sainthood
Mother Theresa Dudzik’s ‘miracle’ proof goes to Rome
Chicago has moved a step closer to having another “local” saint with the June 23 official closing of the inquiry into a miracle attributed to the Venerable M. Theresa Dudzik.

Bishops move the abortion-politics debate away from communion rail
As the U.S. bishops attempted to move the debate about abortion and politics away from the Communion rail and into the hearts of individual Catholics, reaction to their June 18 statement on “Catholics in Political Life” indicated that discussion of the topic would continue.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

June 20, 2004
Making integrity work
Catholic health Assn. promotes ethical decision-making
Corporate scandals. The clerical sexual abuse crisis. The dilemmas posed by stem-cell research, genetic manipulation and other emerging biotechnologies. The squeezing of funds for Medicaid and other public health programs.

Catholic leaders must set health care agenda
Ongoing work in genetic advancements will change not only the way medicine is practiced, but the way health care is delivered and paid for, a health care policy expert told members of the Catholic Health Association which was meeting in Chicago in early June.

Writer urges Catholic health providers to keep the faith
The state of health care, the church and American society as a whole would be diminished if Catholic hospitals and other health organizations were to lose their religious identity, health care leaders were told June 9.

Linking art and life
Alphonsus Academy students, iconographer color their world
For Arielle Torres, a seventh-grader at Alphonsus Academy and Center for the Arts, it was all about taking paint to canvas.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

June 6, 2004
Ordinations, 2004
Cardinal George ordained 14 men as priests for the Archdiocese of Chicago May 22 at Holy Name Cathedral.

Rainbow Sash
Eucharist is about Christ, not protest
As Cardinal George took increasing public criticism for his directive to deny the Eucharist to protesters wearing rainbow sashes on Pentecost Sunday, he—as well as gay activists—pointed out that the problem wasn’t that the protesters were identifying themselves as homosexual, it was that they were using the Eucharist for a political statement.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

May 23, 2004
West Side story
10 parishes take hand in restructuring
Parishioners of 10 West Side parishes know this much: Their parishes cannot continue to function as they have, with not enough people, not enough priests and not enough money to support that many independent faith communities in their area.

14 ordained for Chicago
Fourteen men from several nations and many walks of life were scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood May 22.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations

May 9, 2004
Review board head to step down
Says some bishops rethinking policy
The interim chairwoman of the lay National Review Board, Illinois Appellate Court Justice Anne M. Burke, announced that she plans to leave the board along with three other members June 30.

Michelle Martin
Making peace
Hundreds of people attended Catholic Theological Union’s annual “Blessed are the Peacemakers” dinner April 28.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

April 25, 2004
Spreading CHEER
Laughing at life while facing death
Wearing an oversized green plastic tam o’shanter, and fluffing the red and orange scarves he held in front of his face, Malloy accepted the good-natured teasing of his friends about his unexpected skill in juggling.
“I spent six years in clown college,” he deadpanned.

End-of-life care differs
Jesuit Father Myles Sheehan, a gerontologist and associate dean at Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine, said people who make decisions about feeding and hydration tubes must consider the pope’s words carefully.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

March 28, 2004
Home not-so-sweet
St. Sylvester pastor says gentrification drives out community residents
When Father Michael Herman wants to show what’s happening to the housing market in the Logan Square neighborhood, he doesn’t have to look far.
Affordable housing a ‘basic human right' >

Living the Gospel
Honors for a social justice pioneer
When Peggy Roach was in high school in the early 1940s, her teachers at St. Scholastica Academy told her about Friendship House, a sort of settlement house on the South Side started by Baroness Catherine de Hueck.

Passing the torch
A story of memories and faith
When does the torch uniting a family pass from parents to children? Being a group of nine adult brothers and sisters has many rewards and a few challenges. Dividing and closing the family homestead after our mother died put each of these at center stage.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

March 14, 2004
Church hurting—but healing
National Review Board leader Anne M. Burke painted a picture of a church in the midst of a horrific crisis, but with the possibility of emerging stronger.

Lenten fish frys a grand tradition
Parishes across the archdiocese turn the Lenten practices of abstinence from meat on Fridays and almsgiving into an opportunity to raise money and have fun with Friday fish fries.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

February 29, 2004
National abuse report; bishops ‘kept their promise’
As Catholics around the country got their first look at the extent of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, officials from the Archdiocese of Chicago were updating information on clerical sexual misconduct here since 1950.

The Passion
The Catholic New World asked several people—a theology professor, a biblical expert and a Catholic film reviewer—to watch Mel Gibson’s interpretation of the Gospels, “The Passion of the Christ.”

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

February 15, 2004
Health links of ‘divine-human interface’ affirmed
The health of the human body and the health of the human spirit are inextricably linked, and those who work with either must consider the effect on both, according to medical and theological experts who spoke at a Catholic Theological Union conference Jan. 30-31.

Church must hear ‘unexpected’ bearers of the Gospel message
“I challenge [the Catholic Church] to listen to voices, cross boundaries and accept true discipleship in the spirit of humility and justice,” said Michelle Gonzalez, the daughter of two Cuban exiles.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

February 1, 2004
From shout to whisper?
Church needs to ‘recover its moral voice’
The Catholic Church has maintained a remarkably consistent moral voice to the modern world, Cardinal George said Jan. 25, despite evidence that world isn’t doing a lot of listening.

Pro-lifers gather in Washington on Roe anniversary
At rallies, prayer services and marches held in Washington on the 31st anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the United States, participants were encouraged to continue their fight against abortion.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

January 18, 2004
Audit finds most dioceses complying with charter
By the end of 2003, nearly 90 percent of U.S. Catholic dioceses were in compliance with the bishops’ national policy to protect children and respond to clergy sexual abuse of minors, according to the first national audit report released Jan. 6.’

‘Code’ stirs pot of controversy, questions
Where some see misleading history, others find potential ‘teaching moment’
When Rosalind Hays first read “The Da Vinci Code,” she didn’t look at it as anything but entertainment.

Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

January 4, 2004
Audit report due Jan. 6
The U.S. bishops’ Office of Child and Youth and Protection will release two major reports early in 2004.

Year of challenge and change for Chicago Catholics
Challenge and change marked 2003 in the Archdiocese of Chicago, as area Catholic bade farewell to three retiring bishops and welcomed three new ones, gathered for the first Festival of Faith, adapted to changes in the way Mass is celebrated, continued to work for social justice on a variety of fronts and confronted financial predicaments and the ongoing crisis created by the scandal of priests sexually abusing children.
Cardinal George Church Clips
Interview News & Updates
Obituaries
Observations Parish Pride

2005 Archives