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Featured articles
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Adult Confirmation - 'I feel complete
now' |
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Soup kitchen grant worth a potential
$40,000 - 'answer to our prayers' |
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Ss. Peter & Paul - Ethel Urbi
(Immigrant amused by others' perceptions) |
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Parish gardeners find spirituality in
tending to soil, plant life |
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Volunteers get to meet their
neighbors during community cleanup |
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Couple starts rehab project; faith
community pitches in |
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2007-2008
Annual Telephone Directory
of the Diocese of Gary |
50th
Anniversary of the
Diocese of Gary |
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Slideshow:
Take a peak inside...
Click on photo to begin.
Copies of the
2007-2008 Diocesan Telephone Directory are available at our
Merrillville office for $15. Call (219) 769-9292 ext. 286
for details. |
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Slideshow:
Anniversary Celebration
Click on photo to begin.
Extra copies of
the Jubilee Editions are available at our Merrillville
office. Call (219) 769-9292 ext. 286 for details. |
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TOP LOCAL STORY
ST. STANISLAUS KOSTKA
Intimate chapel setting closes out the world and returns
focus to Jesus
By
Kathy Ceperich
This
story has been edited for web space. Entire story can
be read in the print edition dated May 18, 2008.
Newspaper Home Delivery - Subscribe Today
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Tom McGuire explains some of the
renovations done to the chapel in the former convent at
St. Stanislaus Kostka, Michigan City. (Bob Wellinski
photos)
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MICHIGAN CITY — Nearly every Friday, Cindy
McGuire drives from her Chesterton home to St.
Stanislaus Kostka and the Divine Mercy Chapel to pray
during holy hour and stay for the Chaplet of Divine
Mercy. The intimate chapel setting closes out the world
and returns focus to the actual presence of Jesus in the
host displayed in the tabernacle. McGuire had lived in
Saudi Arabia with her husband Tom McGuire for nearly 15
years but when he was getting ready to retire, she
returned to the United States first, and alone, in 2000.
He was supposed to join her a year later. However, work
kept him in the foreign country for another seven years!
During that time, Cindy McGuire returned to the church
she grew up in — St. Stanislaus Kostka — and became
active in the church, enjoying her weekly visits to the
chapel. Both she and her father graduated from the
Catholic school. After living in Saudi Arabia, she
welcomed the familiarity of her old church and running
into friends she had known years ago. Last fall, when
her husband returned from working for Saudi Aramco as a
control system engineer, both were elated that he made
it back safely. However, after working 12-hour days in
Saudi Arabia, he was eager for a project to keep him
busy through the winter since he wasn’t ready for couch
potato retirement. His wife quickly thought of the work
needed at the Divine Mercy Chapel. “This is the Lord’s
House,” she said, “It should look better.”
(Read
entire story. Subscribe to the print edition) |
SURVIVORS LIVE ON A ROAD IN MYANMAR
Survivors live on a road near a village
destroyed by Cyclone Nargis, south of
central Yangon, Myanmar, May 12. (CNS
photo/Reuters) (May 12, 2008) |
CYCLONE SURVIVORS REACH OUT FOR USED CLOTHES
IN MYANMAR
Survivors of Cyclone Nargis reach out as a
local donor distributes used clothes at a
destroyed village in Yangon, Myanmar, May
12. (CNS photo/Reuters) (May 12, 2008) (May
12, 2008) |
Myanmar cyclone victims try to survive amid
devastating losses
By Catholic News Service |
LEIEINTAN, Myanmar (CNS)
-- Pascal Than Hlaing is just one of
many who are grieving in Leieintan, a
village where only one house is left
standing and the Baptist and Catholic
churches had their roofs torn open.
Than Hlaing mourns the death of two of
his three children. "One of my sons was
swept away when the water level was up
to his neck," the 31-year-old Catholic
father told the Asian church news agency
UCA News May 9, referring to his
6-year-old boy. Cyclone Nargis hammered
the Irrawaddy delta region early May 3
as it blew in from the Bay of Bengal,
sending a wall of seawater inland for
miles. Several days later, Than
Hlaing's 3-year-old son "passed away
after he caught a cold." Now he and his
wife are left with their remaining son;
they are being sheltered in the Baptist
church because their home was destroyed.
A small Catholic Church volunteer group
from the Yangon Archdiocese that arrived
within days of the cyclone began
assisting Than Hlaing and the rest of
the 3,000 residents of the village about
75 miles southwest of Yangon. Leieintan
was accessible only by boat, given the
trees, downed electricity pylons and
other cyclone debris blocking the roads.
The humanitarian disaster littered the
partially flooded fields in this and
other villages with the decomposing
bodies of people and cattle. Other
bodies float past in the river. U.N.
officials have said up to 100,000 people
are either dead or missing. Than
Hlaing's blank expression tells what
words cannot of the horrors that he and
hundreds of thousands of others face in
the delta area, the rice bowl of
Myanmar. The Catholic volunteer group of
three laypeople, their parish priest and
a priest from Yangon had their work cut
out in assessing the enormity of the
needs in this village, one of the
worst-hit in Yangon archdiocesan
territory. They arrived May 9 and the
next day began bringing in food and
diesel fuel by boat from Pyapon. The
fuel is for running a rice-husking
machine in the village and pumping out
dirty water from a tank of drinking
water. The church workers also began
distributing sacks of rice and clothes.
One of the volunteers, Mary Khin from
the Karuna Myanmar Social Services'
office in Yangon, said she was "shocked"
and it "pained" her to see all the dead
bodies of people and animals that washed
in at night over the delta. Karuna
Myanmar is the local Catholic Church's
relief and development organization.
Villagers were trying to come to grips
with the tragedy. About 70 were living
in the one house left standing, 150 in
the Baptist church, and 20 more in St.
Joseph's Catholic Church. The rest were
staying in the wreckage of their homes.
Ko Naing, 30, a Buddhist, told UCA News
that his only child, just a year old,
died in the nighttime flood. "My wife
can't swim, so we had to hang on to a
tree. I picked her up to put her up the
tree, and at the same time the water
swept away my child," he said. They did
not see the baby again. One woman, who
gave her name as Rosy, said her
4-year-old son was washed away by the
flood and she and her husband climbed a
tree in the dark to stay above the
water, which rose to 13 feet. Almost a
week later, "our first problem now is
food," the 47-year-old woman told UCA
News. On May 8, Archbishop Charles Bo of
Yangon hosted the visiting apostolic
delegate to Myanmar, Archbishop
Salvatore Pennacchio, for a tour of the
disaster area. More than 15 villages
simply disappeared. About 70 percent of
the trees in Yangon were uprooted. All
churches, priests' houses and convents
have been damaged, Archbishop Bo said.
The church in Myanmar has appealed for
international aid. Through the newly
formed Myanmar Disaster Relief
Committee, under the leadership of the
Yangon Archdiocese, the local church has
begun offering food, clothing, shelter
materials and medicine to the affected
people. The greatest destruction
occurred in the area of Yangon,
Myanmar's capital and largest city, and
the Irrawaddy delta region to the
southwest, covered by the Pathein
Diocese.
END
05/12/2008 11:37 AM ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News
Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops
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 CHICAGO
PASTORAL ASSOCIATE EXPLORES WORLD'S CHURCHES
David Heimann, pastoral associate at St.
Ignatius Parish in Chicago, gives a
presentation to parishioners about his
recent yearlong trip around the world.
Heimann, 33, visited 365 different parishes
around the globe in 2007 for daily Mass.
(CNS/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World)
(May 12, 2008) |
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CHICAGO (CNS) -- David
Heimann's dream was to spend 365 days in 365
different places, each destination a new
opportunity to experience Christ made flesh
in our world today. "Forget about it," his
spiritual director told him. "If you can
forget about it, then it was nothing, but if
it keeps coming back to your heart, then it
is something of the Spirit, and we need to
pay attention to it." He could not forget.
Heimann, 33, pastoral
associate of St. Ignatius Parish in Chicago,
has since made his dream a reality, having
visited 365 different parishes around the
globe in 2007 for daily Mass, with the
support of Ad Sodalitatem, a group dedicated
to "evoking solidarity in the Roman Catholic
Church through prayer, education and
development of the poor by building personal
relationships with Christians throughout the
world." "I abandoned everything I
knew," Heimann wrote in the blog he kept up
each day of his travels. "I left my fishing
nets at the boat. I followed." Every day, he began with
the same simple prayer: "Lord, lead me where
you need me to go and show me what you need
me to see." And every day he felt his prayer
was answered. On his pilgrimage, Heimann
came to realize that true holiness comes
from the miracle of Christ's body in the
Eucharist, wherever it is celebrated. "The beauty of the
Eucharist is not in how much gold is around
our tabernacles but how we have surrounded
our hearts with the sanctuary of love we
experience in the Eucharist," he said.
It was in this love that
he found the consistent comfort of Christ's
presence throughout such constant change.
"The Eucharist was the
center of the experience -- even when I felt
lost and abandoned, I always understood the
Eucharist," Heimann said. "You can go to a
poor village in Zimbabwe and still
experience the same love. It was always
there." Heimann said he now better
understands "the mystery of the church as
being one body yet diverse in its members." "The Eastern church has a
heart to the church, and the European and
American have an intellect," Heimann said.
"Africans have the soul of the church. The
Latin church has a certain passion, almost
like the blood of the church, and together
they make a whole." It was amid these diverse
cultures that Heimann came across a
different type of abandonment. "I wish I could show
people how their fellow Christians are
begging for recognition and divinity, but
they feel forgotten and abandoned," he said.
"I wish I could show people that because
they live in a Third World country they're
not lacking in faith, but in fact they are
abundant in it -- they have so little, yet
they have so much more faith than us with so
much privilege." Heimann now realizes that,
more than a physical journey, it is the
spiritual journey that counts. "America doesn't do
pilgrimage because we think we've already
arrived," he said. "We think this is the
Holy Land. In doing so we've lost that sense
that there's another journey that we must
make, one to the center that lives in the
heart of every human being. This discipline
of being a pilgrim is recognizing that our
ultimate home is not here -- our ultimate
home is in heaven."
- - -
Editor's Note: Heimann's travel blog and
photos from his pilgrimage are online at:
www.adsodalitatem.org.
END
05/12/2008 11:17 AM ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News
Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
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Illinois bill would allow detainees access
to religious counselors
By Michelle Martin Catholic News Service
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CHICAGO (CNS) --
Mercy Sisters JoAnn Persch and
Pat Murphy didn't know too much
about the system faced by
immigrants who are about to be
deported when they started
praying outside the Broadview
detention center last year. But
their community, the Sisters of
Mercy of the Americas, had
committed itself to stand in
solidarity with immigrants. When
the sisters asked what they
could do to support immigrants,
Elena Segura, director of the
Catholic Campaign for
Immigration Reform for the
Archdiocese of Chicago,
suggested they join the regular
Friday morning prayer vigil in
suburban Broadview. Friday is
the day detainees leave the
Broadview holding facility on
their way to deportation. There,
the sisters met the relatives of
immigrants about to be deported.
Then they saw how the hearings
leading to deportation were
handled: with the hearing
officer in Chicago and the
detainee appearing on video,
usually from the McHenry County
Jail in Woodstock, where U.S.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement pays $95 per
detainee per day to have them
housed. So they went to
Woodstock to pray outside the
jail. They were told to stop.
When they asked to go into the
jail to speak with the detainees
they were refused. The two
Chicago-based sisters are among
the advocates for a bill in the
Illinois House of
Representatives which would
require that detainees have
access to visits from religious
ministers or clergy. "These
persons have been separated from
their families and their
communities," states a Catholic
Conference of Illinois fact
sheet on the bill, HB 2747.
"There is much uncertainty about
what will happen to them and to
their families. Many of these
persons are in need of spiritual
counseling and religious
ministry and services during
this time. Although they are
being detained, their human
dignity must always be
respected. They have a right to
humane treatment and access to
religious ministry." Jail
officials have argued that the
sisters have no need to pray
with the detainees or offer them
pastoral counseling. They say
they are following standards
created by ICE, which call for
detainees to have access to
pastoral care from a minister of
their faith. However, Sister
JoAnn said, the access the
detainees have to a Catholic
pastoral minister is limited to
a 50-minute visit from a secular
Franciscan once every two weeks
in the jail library. "There's no
opportunity for one-on-one
pastoral counseling," she said.
"There might be an occasional
Mass, but there are no regular
sacraments." The sisters, Father
Brendan Curran and Bob Gilligan
of the Catholic Conference of
Illinois met with jail officials
in early May. The sisters got
permission to visit the jail but
only to assess how detainees'
needs are being met, not to meet
with them directly. Meanwhile,
advocates of the bill were
working in early May with
representatives of the Illinois
Sheriffs' Association to come up
with wording that would be
acceptable to both parties.
END
05/09/2008 11:27 AM ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News
Service/U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops
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Pope defends church's teaching on artificial
birth control
By John Thavis Catholic News Service
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VATICAN CITY (CNS) --
Pope Benedict XVI defended the church's
teaching against artificial birth
control and said its wisdom has become
clearer in light of new scientific
discoveries and social trends. In an age
in which sexual activity can become like
a drug, people need to be reminded that
married love should always involve the
whole person and be open to new life, he
said May 10. The pope made his comments
as the church prepared to mark the 40th
anniversary of the encyclical "Humanae
Vitae." Issued by Pope Paul VI July 25,
1968, it affirmed the church's teaching
on married love and said use of
artificial contraception was morally
wrong. Addressing participants of a
church-sponsored conference on "Humanae
Vitae," Pope Benedict said the
encyclical was a "gesture of courage."
He acknowledged that its teachings have
been controversial and difficult for
Catholics, but he said the text
expressed the true design of human
procreation. "What was true yesterday
remains true also today. The truth
expressed in 'Humanae Vitae' does not
change; in fact, in light of new
scientific discoveries, its teaching is
becoming more current and is provoking
reflection," he said. The pope said the
encyclical correctly explained that
married love is based on total
self-giving between spouses, a
relationship that goes far beyond
fleeting pleasures or sentiments. "How
could such a love remain closed to the
gift of life?" he said. The pope said
the Christian concept of marriage
respects the unity of the person, in
body and soul. The alternative, he said,
is a culture that considers the body an
object that can be bought or sold and in
which "the exercise of sexuality is
transformed into a drug that wants to
subject the partner to one's own desires
and interests." "As believers, we can
never allow the dominion of the
technical to invalidate the quality of
love and the sacredness of life," he
said. The pope said this fundamental
view of human life and procreation was
something that goes back to the creation
of man, and thus represents a paradigm
for all generations. It is a key part of
natural law that deserves universal
respect, he said. "The transmission of
life is inscribed in nature and its laws
remain as unwritten norms to which
everyone should refer," he said. Any
attempt to move away from this principle
is destined to remain sterile and
without a future, he said. He said it
should also be remembered that true love
involves a sense of sacrifice, which is
part of a married couple's openness to
life. "No mechanical technique can
substitute the act of love that two
spouses exchange as a sign of a greater
mystery, in which they are protagonists
and co-participants in creation," he
said. The pope said he was concerned
that adolescents today are not receiving
the kind of sexual formation they need
in order to make proper decisions and
avoid the "risky implications" of their
behavior. He said it does no honor to
free and democratic societies when they
offer their young people "false
illusions" about their own sexuality.
Freedom must be tied to truth and
responsibility, he said. He summed up
his talk by saying that the 1968
encyclical should be looked at with a
broader perspective. "The teaching
expressed in 'Humanae Vitae' is not
easy. However, it conforms to the
fundamental structure through which life
has always been transmitted from the
creation of the world, in the respect of
nature and in conformity with its
demands," he said.
END
05/12/2008 12:00 PM ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News
Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops |
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ROME (CNS) -- The office
in charge of promoting Pope John Paul
II's sainthood cause is looking for
English speakers who have a story to
tell about their meeting with the late
pope, their prayers for his intercession
or graces received after asking for his
help. In a March 17 statement, the Rome
diocesan office for the sainthood cause
said English submissions to the cause's
Web site were seriously falling behind
those in Italian, Polish and French.
The Web site --
www.vicariatusurbis.org/Beatificazione/English/credits.htm
-- also has space set aside for
testimonials in Spanish and Portuguese.
A spokeswoman for the
office said: "It does not have to be a
miracle or something extraordinary. We
would like to hear and share stories
about an encounter or a grace received
or a hope. "This part of the site is
very active in other languages, but few
English speakers seem to know we have a
site and a magazine where they can send
these things," she said. The monthly
magazine is called "Totus Tuus" ("All
Yours"), Pope John Paul's motto.
Pope John Paul died April 2, 2005.
Testimonials submitted for publication
should be no more than one page in
length, single-spaced. They may be sent
by e-mail to:
postulatio@vicariatusurbis.org, with
the subject line stating "I am giving my
personal testimony."
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News
Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops |
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Rome office issues prayer cards, relics to
promote sainthood for JPII
By Catholic News Service
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ROME (CNS) -- The Rome diocesan office
charged with promoting the sainthood cause
of Pope John Paul II continues to distribute
the official prayer cards for the cause and
the only authorized relics, an office
spokeswoman said.
"We receive dozens of requests each day
and the distribution continues," she told
Catholic News Service Feb. 26.
The relic is a small piece of one of
the white cassocks worn by Pope John Paul.
The free cards and relics can be
requested by letter, fax or e-mail, she
said.
The e-mail address is:
Postulazione.GiovanniPaoloII@VicariatusUrbis.org;
the fax number is: (39-06) 6888-6240.
The mailing address is: Postulazione
Giovanni Paolo II, Vicariato di Roma, Piazza
San Giovanni in Laterano 6A, 00184 Rome,
Italy.
END
Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News
Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. |
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