News - April 2018 RSS Feed

VATICAN CITY – Close to 100 financiers, philanthropists, artists, tech experts, physicians, politicians and religious leaders spent more than an hour in a Vatican meeting room talking about tenderness.

About a quarter of the Church of the Good Shepherd Parish’s 450 parishioners teamed up at tables inside the school gym on April 14 – even on a rare fog-free Saturday in coastal Pacifica – to score the parish’s effectiveness, identify its challenges and map out its future together.

The St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County has established a “Children of God” community impact fund in support of its direct services to feeding and clothing the homeless. While not bearing the name of Lorraine Moriarty, in whose honor the fund was established, it bears the name by which she was known by many. Moriarty is the recently retired executive director of SVdP.

The next year, beginning with a Block Party, May 6, will celebrate San Francisco’s St. Agnes Parish and all it has meant to the Catholic Church, its members, and its leadership during the last 125 years. Diane David is chair of the anniversary committee. “It’s been a wonderful experience so far with strong and dedicated committee members,” Diane told me via email.

WASHINGTON – With faith, people can confront and help overcome the evil of racism, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said in an April 17 talk at The Catholic University of America.

WASHINGTON – Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago and Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles will be among dozens of U.S. church leaders convening in June to address the troublesome polarization that marks church and political life and develop steps to work toward achieving the common good.

There is much talk of “intimacy” in our time. To know and be known, to love and be loved; these pursuits dominate the lives of most of those around us.

Moral outrage is the antithesis of morality. Yet it’s everywhere present in our world today and is everywhere rationalized on the basis of God and truth.

How enlightening it is to read letters to the editor. Meaningful thought, sharing and caring.

Catholic San Francisco should be commended for the balanced article by Dr. Elisa Yao (“Family planning in the 21st century,” April 12, Page 11). It makes the honest and true statement that when natural family planning is practiced imperfectly, the accidental pregnancy rate is around 22 percent. Taken together with Father Tad Pacholczyk’s statement that “nobody is perfect” (“The wrong-headedness of ‘wrongful-birth’ lawsuits,” April 12, Page 15) we can all make our own decisions.

It would be most helpful to readers of Catholic San Francisco if a glossary of unusual words found in some of the columns was listed in the paper.

Thank you for the magnificent tribute to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (“Rallies, prayer services recall legacy of slain civil rights leader,” April 12).

The defense of the indefensible often leads to a kind of derangement in otherwise rational people. That was the case with the defenders of slavery and legalized racial segregation; it has become the case with abortion.

The impact I witnessed during the “March for Our Lives” demonstration in San Francisco was overwhelming: Instead of crying there was speaking, instead of mourning there was protesting, in place of defeat there was drive, instead of waiting, youth made their voices heard about gun violence. I witnessed hope and not despair, the first chapter of a new era where public morality is the issue. I was swept up into a nationwide movement spearheaded by student survivors of the Parkland massacre. Fearless young voices railed against the National Rifle Association with the result that many corporations are bailing out of their deals with the NRA.

Do you put more of your head or your heart into your prayers? While author Gary Jansen acknowledges that you need the right balance, he suspects that over-intellectualizing prayer is a common problem, so we need to focus more on the heart. And one way to do that is through devotions.

The first thing that jumped out at me in Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation on holiness, “Gaudete et exsultate,” is how much he has put women in the foreground. Women are usually in the background of papal statements, if they appear at all. Not here. They are upfront and visible.

Genesis 1:31 tells us “God looked at everything he made, and he found it very good.” Our world has been created with a beautiful balance to bring forth life, or, as in “Laudato Si’,” “the book of nature is one and indivisible.”

NEW YORK – Even if one acknowledges that our new cultural moment finally allows “Humanae Vitae” (“Of Human Life”) to be heard and discussed in a fair and open way, there are many who find it difficult to take the document seriously given the relationship of contraception to abortion.

On March 24, the same day that downtown San Francisco swelled with thousands of protesters marching in support of victims of gun violence, nearly 50 St. Ignatius parishioners quietly fanned out on the same streets in solidarity with a less visible group of victims – the victims of human trafficking.

VATICAN CITY – God calls all Christians to be saints – not plastic statues of saints, but real people who make time for prayer and who show loving care for others in the simplest gestures, Pope Francis said in his new document on holiness.