News - October 2018 RSS Feed

VATICAN CITY – Speaking on behalf of all adult Catholics, Pope Francis formally closed the Synod of Bishops by asking young people for forgiveness.

VATICAN CITY – As the Synod of Bishops finished its work, Pope Francis called on all Catholics to defend the church from those who are influenced by the “great accuser” seeking to destroy it.

In the old convent at St. Cecilia Parish in San Francisco, five 20-something Catholics have moved in with a mission to change San Francisco. Part of a group called Culture Project International, the team of recent college graduates give Theology of the Body inspired talks to school students and young adults on respecting human dignity, the importance of marriage and family, and the value of chastity.

For 70 years many Christmas trees in San Francisco have served double duty as bright company for the gifts under them, and as a source of aid to young beneficiaries throughout the Bay Area. The Guardsmen this year will sell more than 6,000 Christmas trees at their Fort Mason tree lot with the $500,000 raised funding a campership program sending underprivileged children to summer camp, and scholarships for underprivileged children attending private schools in San Francisco.

The city of San Francisco removed a controversial statue from the Pioneer Monument near City Hall in the early hours of Sept. 14.

Fall was a busy time for putting new names on office doors at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park. Welcomed to the faculty to teach and assist in several areas of faith were Father John Boettcher, Dr. Nina Heereman, Dr. Francis Feingold, Father Francis Lowe and Jesuit Father David Robinson.

Closing out a monthlong series of town hall-style discussions about clergy sex abuse, the Archdiocese of San Francisco held its final listening session Oct. 28 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Belmont. More than 100 people gathered to hear Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone review archdiocesan policies to safeguard children and talk to him about the abuse scandals inundating the church.

The hall underneath St. Mary’s Cathedral buzzed with chatter as more than 500 people gathered for a luncheon to celebrate the archdiocese’s retired priests. The eighth annual St. John Vianney Luncheon on Oct.26 honored the more than 70 retired priests who have served in the archdiocese, and supported the Priests Retirement Fund. Since it began in 2011, the event has raised more than $1.7 million.

Students, parents, teachers and staff of Holy Name School in San Francisco are more prepared for a schoolwide or local emergency than they’ve ever been after the school held its third annual lockdown, evacuation and reunification drill Oct. 19, principal Natalie Cirigliano said.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Catholic bishops stand with “our brothers and sisters of the Jewish community,” the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Oct. 27 after a horrific shooting earlier that day in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue, described as a hub of Jewish life in that city.

WASHINGTON – Canon law gives Catholic laypeople the right to make an impact in addressing the clerical sex abuse crisis which has re-emerged anew in the church, said a number of canon lawyers interviewed by Catholic News Service.

WASHINGTON – Obianuju Ekeocha, founder and president of Culture of Life Africa, encouraged a Washington audience Oct. 23 to celebrate the birth of babies and to ensure that U.S. government funds do not go toward promoting a culture of abortion in Africa.

This passage in the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that eternal priesthood comes from God.

Shusaku Endo, the Japanese author of the classic novel, “Silence” (upon which Martin Scorsese based his movie) was a Catholic who didn’t always find his native land, Japan, sympathetic to his faith. He was misunderstood but kept his balance and good heart by placing a high value on levity. It was his way of integrating his faith with his own experience of occasional personal failure and his way of keeping his perspective on a culture which misunderstood him. Levity, he believed, makes faith livable.

Soon after I entered the convent, our group (of twenty-four) began having information sessions with the Postulant Director. Of course, we really knew very little about what convent life would be like when we entered. On the first day we got a big shock when we were brought downstairs to the dining room and saw that there were tables and stools, not chairs. That wasn’t too bad. We were young and with one exception, no one had back trouble yet.

The first question is, why has it taken so long for the hierarchy to see the problem and not address it adequately? I recall some 30 or 40 years ago hearing about it and mistakenly believing these were isolated incidents. Many friends either left their parishes or declined to support them financially due to the funds spent on court settlements. But obviously those supposed to be in charge did not go to the root of the problem.

Billions of men and women down through the ages have tried to solve the problem of loneliness, each in his or her own way. Even the saints suffer from loneliness. St. Augustine described it as the human condition, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee O Lord.”

Almost 2 million Americans are now addicted to opioids. The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that more than 100 people die each day in the U.S. from opioid overdoses. This unprecedented level of abuse — which involves not only heroin, but also prescription pain relievers such as OxyContin, Percocet, morphine, codeine, and fentanyl — has become a national crisis. Reportedly, about 80 percent of heroin addicts first misused prescription opioids. Yet for many patients, no pain-relieving options more effective than opioids exist. Figuring out how to use these powerful pharmacological agents in an appropriate and ethical manner is urgent and imperative.

Roxanne Loper was almost home. Her journey had begun 15 months ago when she spotted a picture of a baby girl on the World Partners website and sensed something special.

VATICAN CITY – A former nuncio to the United States acknowledged hearing rumors about the sexual misconduct of Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick already in 1994.