News - August 2018 RSS Feed

Mary Yanish wasn’t even one year into her retirement after a 40-year career as a licensed clinical social worker when she realized she still had work to do.

WASHINGTON – The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Aug. 16 announced three key goals and a comprehensive plan to address the “moral catastrophe” of the new abuse scandal hitting the U.S. church.

WASHINGTON – The report begins dramatically, imploring its readers: “We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this.”

The recent reports of episcopal negligence and malfeasance in the face of clerical sexual abuse, coupled with some reports of bishops themselves guilty of sexual predation, have reopened old wounds and inflicted new ones on victims, their families, the Catholic faithful at large, and indeed, the larger society.

Attorneys and other members of the legal profession will gather Sept. 27, 5:30 p.m., at San Francisco’s Sts. Peter and Paul Church for the Red Mass. The liturgy, which originated in the Middle Ages, is celebrated at the opening of the court year seeking “blessing and guidance for judges, attorneys, law school professors, law students, government officials, and others involved in the legal and justice systems, and indeed for all who seek justice,” the St. Thomas More Society said on its website.

Couture and courage appeared together Aug. 15 in Menlo Park at Twilight Fashion Show, a fundraiser for a women’s center funded by the St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County. In front of a large and appreciative crowd, women from SVdP’s Catherine Center program took to the runway to model fashionable clothing and how their lives have changed.

As we move hurriedly into a new school year, let’s take a moment to remember the many educators who have served in our Catholic schools and have now gone to God.

Writer and speaker Father Ron Rolheiser told a group of about 150 people at St. Agnes Parish Aug. 11 that the Eucharist is Catholicism’s “one great act of fidelity” to Jesus.

Deborah Farrington is delighted to continue her career as the principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School. She spent the last 17 years at Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton as a global studies and math teacher and founding director of Global Education, building an international student exchange program.

For members of Legatus, every day is take God to work day. The company owners and executives belonging to the one-of-a-kind organization for Catholic business leaders never leave home without their beliefs so they can spread the wealth of Christ’s teachings to their colleagues, co-workers and communities.

At a backyard dinner in Foster City, new parents at St. Gregory School mingled with each other and were introduced into the details of sending their children to Catholic school: uniform requirements, and how to support the parish festival.

WASHINGTON – Sexual assault victims say they were hurt not only by individual priests, but by church officials and ordinary Catholics who treated them with intolerance and indifference.

CHICAGO – “Sorrow, disgust, outrage – these are righteous feelings” for all to have in reaction to the latest abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich said in an Aug. 17 statement.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, said Aug. 17 that in response to the release of the grand jury report on abuse claims in six Pennsylvania dioceses over a 70-year period, he will collect and release a list of the names of priests in the diocese he currently heads who committed similar offenses.

WASHINGTON – The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests said its members are “sad ... angry ... frustrated” over continued reports involving fellow priests and a lack of accountability by bishops.

WASHINGTON – Catholic theologians, educators, parishioners and lay leaders across the United States expressed their disgust with the abuse scandal in the church, saying the details in a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report “evince a horror beyond expression.”

The dynamic of faith involves a mixture of light and darkness. Because creation is a fruit of God’s creative love it necessarily bears a resemblance to God. The “thumbprint” of God is found in all of creation. Things are neither exactly like God; nor are they completely unlike God.

Thomas Aquinas once suggested that it’s a sin to not give a compliment to someone when it’s deserved because by withholding our praise we’re depriving that person of the food that he or she needs to live on. He’s right. Perhaps it’s not a sin to withhold a compliment but it’s a sad impoverishment, both for the person deserving the compliment and for the one withholding it.

Billy Ray Irick was put to death in Tennessee this week, the first execution in that state in nine years.

The nine-part series on the 50th anniversary of the papal encyclical “Humanae Vitae” (inserted as special CSF section July 26) was far more controversial than your series indicated.