News - July 2015 RSS Feed

WASHINGTON – The Catholic faith tradition “offers a unique perspective on crime and punishment, one grounded in mercy and healing, not punishment for its own sake,” two bishops said in a statement renewing the U.S. Catholic Church’s push to end the death penalty.

Woodside Priory School had open arms for recent visitors Abdia and Alice, students from Daraja Academy in Kenya. The Priory began its relationship with Daraja, which means bridge in Swahili, in 2007 and since then students and faculty have raised money for the school and led faculty and staff summer volunteer trips to Daraja Academy. This is the first stateside trip for students from Daraja.

As a former parishioner of Most Holy Redeemer in the Castro District I read with interest the article the July 17 issue titled “Precious Blood Fathers answer call to shepherd Castro parish.” The story was familiar to me but I admit to blinking twice when I read what I am sure what Father Link meant as a positive statement: “… the parish does not have even a ministry defined or directed specifically to the gay or LGBT community.”

The “sanctuary city” policies are helpful to the extent they do not discourage San Franciscans, whatever their immigration status, from reporting crimes, but recently they have been misused to shield a serial offender, with terrible results.

I find the wording of the headline above the front-page article regarding SB 126 (July 10) to be a poor choice.

When we lose sight of the origin of human rights, we can easily have a false interpretation of those rights. Freedom of speech can become the license to say whatever we wish whenever we wish, giving no thought to prudence.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the U.N. General Assembly, states, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

For all the world to see, Pope Francis and President Obama recently gave personal witness to Christ’s words in Matthew 25:30, “I was in prison and you came to me.” While it was an historic first prison visit for an American president, it was a relatively familiar act of pastoral outreach for a pope.

Every outstanding thinker’s ideas can be traced to the influence of great thinkers. In his recent encyclical letter on the environment, “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis mirrors much of the thinking of renowned theologian Father Romano Guardini, whom the pope studied in Germany.

From this vale of tears, one can never be sure about the boundaries of acceptable behavior at the Throne of Grace. Is laughter at earthly foibles permitted?

The famous Olympian Bruce Jenner made headlines recently when he told ABC News, “For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman … That female side is part of me.

A recent book by Robyn Cadwallander, “The Anchoress,” tells the story of young woman, Sarah, who chooses to shut herself off from the world and lives as an Anchoress (like Julian of Norwich).

After the devastating San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, the Richmond District was rapidly developing. Father Philip O’Ryan, pastor of Star of the Sea Parish, saw a great need. He invited the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet to staff his new school which opened in January 1909 with 137 students in grades one-seven.

Sisters of the Presentation celebrated jubilees marking significant milestones as women religious at a community celebration July 12 at Presentation Retreat Center in Los Gatos.

Salesian Father Austin Conterno died July 11. He was 99 years old, a religious for 77 years and a priest for 67 years. He would have marked his 100th year July 29.

Father Francis Filice died July 17 at Nazareth House in San Rafael. He was 92 years old and a priest for 36 years.

Kelly Kao is no longer making a top salary as a Silicon Valley optometrist and researcher for Google Glass. Instead Kao and her friends, motivated by their Catholic faith, are using their talents to help poor people see in Taiwan, the Philippines and even California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Every weekend for the first few months of 2014, Precious Blood Father Matthew Link removed his collar after Mass at St. Hilary Parish in Tiburon where he was serving as parochial vicar and slipped across the Golden Gate Bridge and into a back pew at Most Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco for evening Mass.

Sisters of the Presentation celebrated jubilees marking significant milestones as women religious at a community celebration July 12 at Presentation Retreat Center in Los Gatos.

Three years after organizing community prayer vigils on the streets of San Francisco where in 2014, 46 people lost their lives to violent crime, the archdiocese’s restorative justice ministry has created a program to prepare volunteers to support the families of crime victims.