Weekly Contribution for the weekend of July 27, 2014

 

Two additional pledges, $10,060 Additional  Pledged.

 

SLICE: 24 HOUR CHURCH IN SO BELOIT

 

Faith

Sponsored by 

The Rockford Register Star

For Steven Sabo, an all-access church is all-access to spiritual health

A decision to leave St. Peter Catholic Church open to the public 24/7 may be questionable to many, but the Rev. Steven Sabo is confident that it is the right thing to do.

The building, 620 Blackhawk Blvd. in South Beloit, will serve as a "spiritual ER clinic."

"I want people to get to Jesus when they need him the most. When you have a crisis, you go straight to the King."

As for the potential of theft and vandalism, "we trust in the holy angels to protect us, and we have exterior cameras on the church. We'll know who is entering and leaving."

Other changes include making the church handicapped-accessible in hopes of drawing senior citizens back to the church.

"I want them know St. Peter is their home, and I want them to feel comfortable here."

Sabo, pastor of St. Peter and of Church of the Holy Spirit in Roscoe, is a former Rockford police and fire chaplain, a job he reluctantly gave up because of time constraints. The chaplain's primary function is to provide support and assistance to police officers, firefighters, other city employees and their families during a crisis.

They also assist first responders in helping victims and the victims' families during calls for service involving a death or serious injury.

"I love chaplain work. It's near and dear to my heart. It's a civic duty to assist police officers and firefighters. I have a brother in law enforcement and an uncle who is a Canadian Mountie.

Sabo said chaplain work is a reminder to pray daily for those who put themselves in harm's way and who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect others.

-- Chris Green

Report: Pope Francis to visit Philadelphia

Pope Francis will visit Philadelphia next year, according to a report in the Catholic News Service.

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput said the pope has accepted his invitation to attend the World Meeting of Families when he visits the United States next year.

The news serivice said the archbishop made the announcement Thursday at a conference in Fargo, North Dakota.

"Pope Francis has told me that he is coming," Chaput was quited as saying, referring to the Sept. 22-27, 2015, meeting in Philly. "The pope will be with us the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of that week."

Read more by clicking on the following:  http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/07/25/report-pope-francis-visit-philadelphia/13156257/

Petition to reinstate fired KC pantry director met by security guards

group of about 30 people carried a copy of an online petition with more than 32,000 signatures asking that Bishop Finn apologize to Colleen Simon -- a woman dismissed from her parish position after her same-sex marriage was inadvertently made public by a local newspaper -- and to give her job back.

The group made their way into the first set of doors at the chancery before two security guards for the building blocked them from entering farther.

According to Georgia Walker, organizer of the Faithful America petition, the group prayed and sang in the lobby as they waited for a representative from the diocese to receive the petition. After calling several offices, she said a summer intern came to collect the petition. Walker said in an email to NCR that as she left police arrived, reportedly at the diocese’s request, to break up an “unauthorized protest.”

Read more by clicking on the following:  http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/petition-reinstate-fired-kc-pantry-director-met-security-guards

Ex-Milwaukee archbishop told he can't spend final days at St. Vincent Archabbey

 

By Richard Gazarik

Thursday, July 24, 2014, 1:42 a.m.
Updated 22 hours ago

Retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who fell from grace in the Roman Catholic Church amid a sex and financial scandal, had hoped to return to St. Vincent Archabbey on Sept. 1 to live out his final days.

But the archabbey has withdrawn its invitation to the elderly cleric, he said.

Weakland, 87, said Archabbot Douglas Nowicki broke the news during a phone call last month, despite his ties to the Benedictine monastery for more than seven decades.

“He asked me to postpone indefinitely my coming,” Weakland told the Tribune-Review in a phone interview. “You don't want to interfere in the house, so I'm going to stay here. I did want to spend my final days there.”

Kim Metzgar, director of public relations at the archabbey in Westmoreland County, declined to comment.

Once a leading and influential voice in the Catholic Church on theological and social issues, Weakland was toppled in the church hierarchy in 2002 by a disclosure that he paid $450,000 in diocesan funds to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who claimed he was the archbishop's lover.

In his book, “A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop,” Weakland revealed he is gay.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/6494915-74/weakland-vincent-archabbey#ixzz38Ru4FxVo
Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

Weekly Contribution for the weekend of July 20, 2014

 

No change in Total Parish Pledged.

Woman in same-sex marriage sues Missouri diocese following dismissal from parish position

A Missouri woman who is civilly married to a female Lutheran minister has sued Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph after she was dismissed from her position as her parish’s coordinator of social ministry.

Colleen Simon said that she told both the current and former pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church, a Jesuit parish in Kansas City, that she was part of a same-sex marriage, and neither objected. After her relationship was discussed in a local newsmagazine, she was dismissed, the Kansas City Star reported.

Simon, whose same-sex marriage ceremony took place in Iowa, is a convert from Catholicism to Lutheranism.

“As needed, we will defend our constitutional freedom to practice our faith and uphold the integrity of our mission and public witness,” the diocese said in a statement.

For more details go to:  http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=22071

Weekly Contribution for the weekend of July 13, 2014

 

Total Parish Pledges decreased by $460.00.

.00

 

Church lawyer details cover-up claims on sex abuse

The Arch-diocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis

The archdiocese has for years pledged it was following the national bishops' policy, known as the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," which lays out a series of requirements — from conducting background checks to alerting parishioners about offender priests and barring guilty clergy from parish assignments. Archbishop Harry Flynn, who led the Minneapolis archdiocese until retiring in 2008, was an architect of the 12-year-old plan.

But Haselberger said she discovered in 2008 that the archdiocese hadn't conducted background checks on most priests since the early 1990s. When she drew attention to the lapse, she said she was told to eliminate references to the date of background checks in a form pledging a priest is suitable for ministry.

Haselberger said scattered among storage locations throughout the archdiocese, she found priests' records, including the history of allegations against them, their compliance with the monitoring program and evidence of their misconduct. "The presence of so many files in so many different locations meant that often important information did not make its way into the priest's personnel file," she said.

Read the rest of the story at:  http://news.yahoo.com/church-lawyer-details-cover-claims-sex-abuse-155640481.html

READ THE  SWORN AVADAVID AT:  http://tinyurl.com/oxszl5a

Pope Francis's Radical Environmentalism

Tara Isabella BurtonJul 11 2014, 12:43 PM ET

“When I look at ... so many forests, all cut, that have become land … that can [no] longer give life,” he reflected, citing South American forests in particular. “This is our sin, exploiting the Earth. ... This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: to convert ourselves to a type of development that knows how to respect creation.” And the pontiff isn’t stopping there; he’s reportedly planning to issue an encyclical, or papal letter, about man’s relationship with the environment.

It’s easy to be glib about Francis’s remarks—few people see the chopping-down of the Amazonian rainforests as an encouraging development. And a pope championing environmental protection isn’t entirely new; after all, The Guardian dubbed Benedict XVI the “first green pontiff” for his work in this area. But by characterizing the destruction of the environment not merely as a sin, but rather as our sin—the major sin, he suggests, of modern times—the pope is doing more than condemning public inaction on environmental issues. By staking out a fiercely pro-environmentalist position, while limiting his discourse about hot-button issues like homosexuality, Francis is using his pulpit to actively shape public discourse about the nature of creation (indeed, environmental issues were part of his first papal mass). In so doing, he is implicitly endorsing a strikingly positive vision of the individual’s relationship with the created world, and with it a profoundly optimistic vision of what it means to be human—and incarnate—overall, opening the door for a radical shift in emphasis, though not doctrine, when it comes to the Catholic Church’s view of mankind.

Read the rest of article by clicking on the following:  http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/pope-franciss-radical-rethinking-of-environmentalism/374300/

Cardinal George Pell takes control of the Vatican's finances and outlines sweeping reforms

Nick Miller

Europe Correspondent

 

In an exclusive interview with respected Vatican reporter John L Allen Jr, Cardinal Pell said his mission was “to be boringly successful, to get off the gossip pages”.

On Wednesday, Cardinal Pell held a press conference to announce his economic plan for the Holy See, building on a reform framework approved by the Pope earlier this year.

In February, Cardinal Pell was appointed prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

He revealed on Wednesday he had brought in Danny Casey, his former business manager of the archdiocese of Sydney, to head a new office to oversee some of the reform projects.

One of the biggest challenges is the restructure of the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank, which has previously acted as a conduit for money laundering.

Cardinal Pell’s plan gives the bank a new, smaller role in the church’s finances, sets up a new office to administer billions of dollars’ worth of investments, and reviews of the Vatican’s pension fund.

Cardinal Pell has also put the Vatican’s ponderous communications department under review, with a plan to expand on digital channels such as the ‘Pope App’ and the Pope’s Twitter account in order to reach more young people.

“Basically, the ambition is to be boringly successful, to get off the gossip pages,” Cardinal Pell said in the interview with the Boston Globe.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/cardinal-george-pell-takes-control-of-the-vatican8217s-finances-and-outlines-sweeping-reforms-20140710-zt1zc.html#ixzz37OBuwJv2

Obamacare Injunction Denied to Philly Diocese

Obamacare Injunction Denied to Philly Diocese

By ROSE BOUBOUSHIAN 

federal judge denied injunctive relief to Catholic charities in Philadelphia that are challenging the so-called contraception mandate in the new health care reform law.
     The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and 17 of its organizations sued the Obama administration and demanded an injunction to the women's preventive health care regulations of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 last month.
     "The church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception, sexual union should be reserved to committed marital relationships in which husband and wife are open to the transmission of life, and, therefore, artificial interference with life and conception are contrary to core beliefs," its lawsuit said.
     Noting the church's opposition to "facilitating the use of contraceptive services" or "associat[ing] in any way with the provision of contraceptive services," the archdiocese said that the health insurance it has provided to more than 4,000 employees through a self-insured Independence Blue Cross "church plan" contained an exemption from the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
     The plan, which expired on June 30, did "not offer coverage for contraceptives," except when prescribed for "non-contraceptive, medical purposes," according to the complaint.
     Though the church alleged that Obamacare's requirements violated its rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter denied it an injunction June 26.
     "There is no evidence in the record to support plaintiffs' speculation that Independence Blue Cross will provide contraceptive services to the participants and beneficiaries of plaintiffs' self-insured plan simply because doing so would make Independence Blue Cross eligible to receive a government benefit," Buckwalter wrote. "It is equally conceivable that Independence Blue Cross would conclude that it is in its overall economic interest to forego the government benefit and continue to adhere to the wishes of its client."

Read the entire story by clicking on the following:  http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/07/11/69448.htm

Argentina Fans Hope Pope Francis Will Use Divine Ties In Match Against The Netherlands (PHOTOS)

 

As the World Cup gets more and more serious, Argentina fans are pulling out all the stops in the hopes of being named champions.

Luckily, they've got a friend in a high place.

Pope Francis, arguably the world's most famous football fan, has promised to keep his prayers neutral during this year's world cup. That hasn't stopped his Argentine countrymen from adopting his likeness while cheering on their team, perhaps with the hope of some holy intercession to prevent a massacre like yesterday's Brazil vs. Germany.

Argentina Fans Hope Pope Francis Will Use Divine Ties In Match Against The Netherlands (PHOTOS)

What Pope Francis Has Done Differently in Tackling the Sexual Abuse Scandal

July 8, 2014, 7:11 pm ET by Priyanka Boghani

What was different about what Pope Francis did yesterday?

First, Pope Francis spent a great deal of time, according to the press reports, with each of the individuals. The young woman who spoke to the Irish newspapers said he was unhurried, he didn’t look at his watch, and sat with her at length and listened to her. This was different from the approach that Pope Benedict took, with shorter meetings, and not as involved in gathering the emotional weight of each one of their accounts. I don’t mean that as a criticism of the former pope, but Francis decided to go more than the extra mile in spending time with them.

The second point is, his language struck me as quite a reflection of guilt on his part on behalf of the hierarchy of the church. He begged for forgiveness rather like a sinner going to confession. What’s significant there is that when someone in his position establishes a terrain of language, a territorial vocabulary, for discussing something that’s as aching and reaching as this scandal that has been building for years, it creates a kind of arena for ongoing exchanges.

Even though some of the survivors’ groups are attacking him, he’s actually done them a favor by speaking as bluntly as he did. The challenge for the pope and for the Vatican now is how they create the structural changes to meet the promise of the rhetoric.

Read the entire story by clicking on the following:     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/religion/secrets-of-the-vatican/what-pope-francis-has-done-differently-in-tackling-the-sexual-abuse-scandal/

Father Geary gives some building details

 

Click on the photocopy to enlarge:

Weekly Contribution for the weekend of July 6, 2014

Total pledges decrease $3,383.

Weekly Contribution for the weekend of June 29, 2014

No change.

Former St. James Assistant now in McHenry

 

Official Appointments

July 4, 2014

The Rev. Diego F. Ospina — to be Parochial Vicar at Church of Holy Apostles, McHenry, effective Tuesday, July 1, 2014.

The Rev. Steven J. Lange — to be Chaplain for OSF St. Anthony Medical Center, Rockford, effective Tuesday, July 1, 2014.

Given at the Chancery, June 30, 2014

Above is taken from:  http://observer.rockforddiocese.org/

Italian church parade defies Pope and pays tribute convicted mobster | CTV News

 

apparent defiance of Pope Francis, a church procession detoured from its route through a southern Italian town to honour a convicted mobster under house arrest.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Sunday denounced the tribute in Oppido Mamertina, a Calabrian town and 'ndrangheta crime syndicate stronghold, as "deplorable and disgusting." He praised three Carabinieri policemen who abandoned the procession in disapproval.

On June 21, Francis, visiting Calabria, had denounced the 'ndrangheta for its "adoration of evil" and said its members were excommunicated.

Read more by clicking on the following:  Italian church parade defies Pope and pays tribute convicted mobster | CTV News

CBCP confirms Pope Francis’ visit to PHL next year

Catholic Church leaders officially announced on Monday the visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines next year.

In a pastoral letter, Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Archbishop Socrates Villegas said the Pope will visit areas devastated by super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), “God willing at the beginning of next year, 2015."

Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle said the Vatican would release the exact date of the visit either by the end of July or early August while the schedule and itinerary of the pontiff's visit will be released by November.

"The Vatican officials organizing the visit of the pope came to Tacloban and Manila. They would report to the Holy Father and the office in charge of the papal visit. We don’t know what will happen next, we would wait," Tagle said at a press briefing at the end of the three-day 109th Plenary Assembly in Manila.

Read more by clicking on the following: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/369094/news/nation/cbcp-confirms-pope-francis-visit-to-phl-next-year

Pope Francis to meet with Irish abuse victims at Vatican on Monday

 

James O’Shea @irishcentral July 06,2014 04:06 AM

Pope Francis will meet Irish survivors of abuse by pedophile priests, the first time he has met victims, tomorrow following a mass in the pope’s private chapel.

The six survivors drawn from Ireland, Britain and Germany will be hosted at the pope’s private residence and the meeting will be eagerly watched by survivor groups who have long called for such a meeting.

In May, Francis called the sexual abuse of children by priests a crime comparable to a “satanic Mass” and promised “zero tolerance.”

Two members of his abuse commission have close Irish ties. Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Irish campaigner Marie Collins who was assaulted as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain will meet with the pope today before the meeting with the abused survivors.

Other members of the commission are drawn from eight countries. British and French psychiatrists, a German psychologist and an Italian cannon law professor are also members. The membership is set to be expanded to include new members from southern hemisphere countries and developing countries  including the pope’s native South America, where abuse is still a taboo subject.

In May, the UN Committee Against Torture said the Church had “major failings in dealing with abuse cases” Vatican officials stated  that 3,420 abuse cases had been investigated over the past decade by the Church’s Canon Law prosecutors, 848 priests defrocked and 2,572 priests ordered to “live a life of prayer or penance.” 

Read the entire article by clicking on the following:  http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Pope-Francis-to-meet-with-Irish-abuse-victims-at-Vatican-on-Monday.html

Weekly Contribution for the weekend of June 22, 2014

One additional pledge.   $3.00 additional  pledged.

Weekly Contribution for the weekend of June 15, 2014