News - September 2018 RSS Feed

About 50 people gathered Sept. 15 in Mill Valley to pray for healing amid the clergy abuse scandals. Led by local ministers, including Father Patrick Michaels, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, a small circle formed in Mill Valley’s Depot Square to pray for victims of sexual violence, its perpetrators, and themselves.

VILNIUS, Lithuania – For the first time in decades, all of the Catholic bishops in China are in full communion with the pope, the Vatican announced.

A Sept. 8 pro-life conference at University of California at Berkeley took aim at uniting pro-life people from different backgrounds to build a broad base for activism in California.

The Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose present “Spiritual Guides for Today: The Essential Henri Nouwen,” with Dominican Sister Ingrid Clemmensen and Mary Ellen Parker, Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25, 43326 Mission Circle, Fremont; 1-2:30 p.m., $10 per session.

In my letter to you of August 17, 2018, I explained that I would consult the Presbyteral Council of the Archdiocese and my Cabinet in order to determine how I would designate an act of reparation be conducted in the Archdiocese for the horrendous crimes of clerical sexual abuse. Since then, revelations have continued to unfold – especially with the publication of stories from the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report – which speak to the depth of the evil that occurred.

As I get closer to retirement, I expect ending my years as a chancery grunt will be my one and only opportunity to lift the prized milestone. Lorraine Paul has several retirements under her belt.

Pope Francis is urging Catholics to join hands with others outside the church to combat climate change, said one of two Vatican priests representing the Holy Father at the Global Climate Action Summit held Sept. 10-14 in San Francisco.

On a Friday morning at San Francisco General Hospital, Father Francis Htun stood out in his Roman collar and clerics in a hallway filled with nurses and doctors. While not part of the medical staff, he is part of the healing mission of the hospital. Father Htun, the Catholic chaplain at the hospital, has the responsibility to provide for the spiritual needs of between 30 and 50 Catholic patients on a daily basis.

Catholic social teaching is the foundation of good medicine and ethical health care. That is the message of this year’s respect life conference, “The Heart of End of Life Care: Catholic Social Doctrine,” Nov. 17 at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

When Jeanette Cook-Barrett joined the San Mateo Serra Club years ago, she never imagined she would watch it close. On Sept. 21, Cook-Barrett, the final president of the San Mateo Serra Club organized its last act.

Parishes in Marin County will celebrate the feast of the most holy rosary, Oct. 7, with Masses and the rosary at St. Vincent Chapel, One St. Vincent’s Drive, San Rafael.

Alpha, a series of evenings of catechesis begins Oct. 3 and continues through Dec 9 at St. Anne of the Sunset Church, 850 Judah St. at Funston in San Francisco. This is the second year for the course at St. Anne.

Anger, mistrust and disappointment poured out at a Sept. 22 listening session held by the Diocese of San Jose in the wake of revelations from Pennsylvania of the systematic cover-up of clerical sex abuse by the Catholic Church.

MIAMI – The crisis the Catholic Church is facing is not “a crisis of faith” or “mainly about a crisis of sexual abuse by clergy,” but is “a crisis of leadership,” Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski said in a Sept. 18 homily.

GRAPEVINE, Texas – The thousands of Hispanic Catholic ministry leaders gathered in Texas for the Fifth National Encuentro shared views on the maturity and presence of their diverse community and held dialogues on the dreams and challenges that they face.

In Numbers, Moses feels overwhelmed by his responsibilities for a restive people in the desert. He begs God for help. God’s response could have been thunder and lightning, to awe the Israelites into submission, so they would stop complaining or interfering, and passively surrender to Moses’ decision-making.

I have read Archbishop Cordileone’s two letters (Aug. 23, Sept. 13) and I agree with them. But it’s not enough. All dioceses must be investigated and the names must be disclosed. All perpetrators must be prosecuted. All enablers must resign. And finally there needs to be financial transparency. Purchasing unnecessarily large and expensive homes for bishops such as in San Jose has to stop.

Bev Rowden’s insightful letter, “Effect of the celibate lifestyle” (Sept. 13), brought to mind some long held thoughts on mandatory priestly celibacy. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said in an interview early in his papacy, the celibacy requirement for priests is a church discipline, not a church doctrine.

One positive response to the current moral crisis in our church was made by Bishop Caggiano, Diocese of Bridgeport (Connecticut), who mandated all priests in the diocese to pray the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel near the end of every Mass. Besides the very real intervention of St. Michael in our troubled church and world praying such prayer in community may help raise the conscious awareness that we are, and have been since the fall, in spiritual warfare with the person of Satan and his dominions.

Pope Francis did not and cannot order “a definitive change in Catholic teaching”; short of the Second Coming, there is no such thing as a “new teaching of the church.” The Roman pontiff is custodian and protector of the Catholic faith handed down; he is not its author. What the Holy Father did was authorize a textual change in a catechism paragraph which unfortunately renders this precious document a less accurate presentation of the perennial Catholic faith.