The Catholic Review has a story about a pair of unusual recent events at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg.

The first was a double rainbow. The second as the archdiocesan newspaper puts it, was the pot of gold.

A worker at the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes discovered two bags containing gold and silver coins. Shrine director Bill Tronolone, who has been trying to raise money to build a pilgrim center, thought his prayers had been answered.

Alas, it was not to be. The discovery of the coins, which The Catholic Review says were valued at more than $40,000, was reported to the Frederick County’s Sherriff’s department. The owner has since come forward to claim the coins.

“The owner just wanted a safe place to keep her life savings while she left town and in her thinking, what better place than the Grotto, right next to the statue of Mary,” Tronolone told The Catholic Review.

Read the story at catholicreview.org.

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Categories: Catholicism, Education
        

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has become the latest Christian denomination to spawn a breakaway church over differing interpretations of homosexuality, the Associated Press is reporting.

Leaders of Lutheran CORE, which opposed the decision of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination in August to welcome gay clergy, told reporters on Wednesday that they planned form an alternate Lutheran church body.

Lutheran CORE members believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. Other Lutherans, and Christians in other denonimations, have called for what some describe as a more inclusive reading of scripture.

Lutheran CORE leaders said they had heard from like-minded Lutherans and congregations from around the country, the AP reports. They said they didn't know how many ELCA congregations might join the new denomination, which they hope to start by August 2010.

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The American public remains concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism in the United States and around the world, but a survey taken shortly after the shootings at Fort Hood shows only a modest increase in these concerns since 2007, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Fifty-two percent of Americans say they are "very concerned" about the possible rise of Islamic extremism in the United States, according to a Pew survey of 1,003 adults conducted from Nov. 12 through 15.

That's up from 46 percent in April 2007. Meanwhile, the percentage who say they are "somewhat concerned" fell by a similar amount, from 32 percent in 2007 to 27 percent this month.

Forty-nine percent of Americans say they are "very concerned" about the possible rise of Islamic extremism around the world, up from 48 percent in 2007. The number who say they are "somewhat concerned" fell 33 pecent to 29 percent.

The survey began one week after the Nov. 5 shootings that left 13 dead an 30 wounded. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim of Palestinian heritage who is said to have been critical of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been charged with premeditated murder in the attacks.

Read the report at pewforum.org.

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Could the U.S. bishops rescind the right of the University of Notre Dame to call itself Catholic?

Months after the nation's flagship Catholic university ignited a firestorm within church circles by inviting President Barack Obama to give a commencement speech and receive in honorary degree, the nation's Catholic bishops met behind closed doors today to discuss increasing oversight of the nation's Catholic colleges and universities.

Obama supports abortion rights; the church opposes abortion. The bishops are holding their fall general assembly this week at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the Associated Press that he had formed a task force charged with reviewing relations between the bishops and the nation's more than 200 Catholic colleges and universities.

In most cases, the bishops excercise no formal authority over the institutions, which, with few exceptions, operate independently of their local dioceses.

"Can bishops just pull the plug on us? It's not that simple," Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, told the AP.

"If those relationships — which don't mean control, they mean relationship — are now weakened, then we have to think of ways to enter discussion in order to strengthen them, and to redefine perhaps what are the criteria for a university or any other organization to consider itself Catholic," George told the AP.

Read the Associated Press story.

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The nation's Catholic bishops had a busy day Tuesday, approving a pastoral letter on marriage, a document on reproductive technologies and a revision to an existing document on healthcare for the dying and chronically ill.

The bishops are holding their fall general assembly at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.

"Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan" breaks no new ground, but bishops said it would provide a foundation for the church’s campaign to promote marriage as the union of one man and one woman going forward.

"Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology" reiterates Catholic teaching against in vitro fertilization, egg, sperm and embryo donation, surrogates and cloning. For infertile couples, the church counsels hormonal treatment and other medications, surgery to repair reproductive organs, and other means.

The revision to “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” underscores what the church says is the moral obligation to provide nutrition and hydration to patients in a persistent vegetative state.

The bishops also approved new English translations of the Roman Missal.

Read more at baltimoresun.com.

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The head of Catholic Relief Services is asking his brother bishops a favor: “Brag about us a little bit.”

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who chairs the Baltimore-based relief agency, spoke on Monday to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is meeting this week at the Mariott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore. Dolan said Catholic Relief Services, the overseas relief and development agency of the U.S. bishops, remains little known even among Catholics:

Even though CRS is recognized as a leader among humanitarian agencies for its professionalism, innovation and efficiency, the fact is that many of your parishioners have not heard of us.

I recently heard a troubling fact. CRS conducted a survey, using an independent polling agency, and asked Catholics to name a humanitarian agency that works overseas. And do you know how many mentioned CRS? Only 22 percent. And that was a huge improvement from the previous year, when only 11 percent named CRS. We have a lot of work to do! We do not spend a lot of money on advertising, as do other similar relief agencies, as less than 5% of our budget goes for overhead.

That’s why I’d like to ask a favor of all of you, my brother bishops. Because CRS is your agency, brag about us a little bit. Perhaps you could write an occasional column in your diocesan newspapers about the work of CRS. Perhaps you could encourage your parishes to get involved in Operation Rice Bowl, the CRS Lenten program. Or maybe you could encourage you priests to mention CRS from time to time in their homilies. Or better yet, they could get involved in our Global Fellows program – we send priests, deacons and seminarians overseas to see the work of CRS first hand, and they come back as some of our best ambassadors.

Dolan concluded with an anecdote that he said illustrated how CRS works, and the impact it has.

Continue reading "CRS head to bishops: Talk us up" »

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Eight years after President George W. Bush unveiled his faith-based initiative, the involvement of religious organizations in government-sponsored social services continues to draw broad public support, according to the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

At the same time, many Americans continue to express concerns about the blurring of the lines between church and state.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans say they favor allowing churches and other houses of worship to apply for government funding to provide social services such as job training or drug treatment, according to the survey of 4,013 adults conducted from Aug. 11 to 27. Twenty-five percent say they oppose the approach.

With President Barack Obama now in charge, Democrats now are more supportive of the faith-based initiative than Republicans, according to the report. Support among Democrats has increased to 77 percent from 70 percent in March 2001. Support among Republicans has fallen from 81 percent to 66 percent in the same timeframe.

Americans retain some reservations about the initiative, according to the report. Sixty-nine percent view the possibility that the government might get too involved in religious organizations as an important concern. Sixty percent views the possibility that people who receive help from faith-based groups might be forced to take part in religious practices as an important concern.

Continue reading "Pew: Faith-based initiative still popular" »

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In an apparent response to criticism of Catholic lobbying for tougher restrictions on abortion in the healthcare overhaul, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said church leaders have an obligation to raise their concerns in the debate.

The bishops opened their fall general assembly Monday at the Waterfront Marriott Hotel in Baltimore a week after lobbying successfully for an amendment to the healthcare bill approved by the House last week. The Stupak-Pitts amendment, named for the lawmakers who introduced it, would block federal subsidies for insurance policies that cover abortion. At least one Senate Democrat has said he would consider a similar measure as the upper body takes up the issue.

The amendment came as the result of a furious lobbying effort by the bishops’ conference, which has long called for universal health coverage but opposes abortion. The bishops’ role has drawn criticism from abortion rights supporters; Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat, suggested last week that the IRS might investigate the bishops’ tax-exempt status.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the bishops’ conference, said "issues that are moral questions before they become political remain moral questions when they become political."

George said it was the job of the bishops to be public without being "co-opted" by any political agenda and serve as "leaven for the world's transformation" in policy debates, the Associated Press reports.

Continue reading "U.S. Cardinal: Church must join health debate" »

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Here’s an odd one. The Associated Press is reporting that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi invited some 200 young Italian women to a party in Rome over the weekend, but when they showed up, they were given a lecture on Islam and copies of the Quran.

The AP says a reporter for Italy's ANSA news agency went undercover with the women, who were hired for 50 Euros (about $75) by a modeling agency for the event Sunday evening. Journalist Paola Lo Mele said the women assembled at a hotel, where some were left behind because they were not tall enough or dressed modestly enough.

Those accepted were taken to a villa, where Gadhafi lectured them on women's rights and religion, and urged them to convert to Islam, according to the AP.

"All the girls expected a party with a gala dinner," Lo Mele told her agency. Instead, "he made a 45-minute speech on Islam and women's role in Islam. It was a bit of an indoctrination session."

Gadhafi was in Rome to attend a U.N. summit on world hunger.

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Monsignor F. Dennis Tinder, the pastor who made the controversial decision last summer to close Towson Catholic High School shortly before the start of the school year, has retired due to health concerns, The Catholic Review reports.

The 67-year-old priest, who has spent the last nine years as pastor of Immaculate Conception in Towson, his childhood parish, cites a neuromuscular disorder that affects his strength and motion.

“We get so tied to this world with its shifting that we forget that we were made to go home,” Tinder tells The Catholic Review. “The God who made us is holding us and carrying us home.”

The parish will hold a reception for him in December.

“We’ll all cry,” parishioner Jo Miller tells the Catholic Review. “It’s going to be very hard. It’s very hard to thank someone adequately for all they’ve done for you.”

The decision to close Towson Catholic in the face of declining enrollments and rising costs drew protests from students and parents and a lawsuit that was unsuccessful.

Tinder told us in July that if he had to do it over, he would have closed the school earlier, to give students and their families more time to make alternate plans for the fall.

"If there's a regret, it is that we tried too hard to keep the school open and went too long," he said. "I think we would have faced the same difficulty had we done it earlier. But it is my regret that we waited as long as we did in a failed attempt to keep it open."

Read the rest of the story at catholicreview.org.

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The American Civil Liberties Union, known as a watchdog for the separation of church and state, wants to make sure that prisoners have access to religious material.

In a letter sent last week to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy, the ACLU demanded that the federal Bureau of Prisons release records related to alleged attempts by prison officials to purge religious material from prison chapel libraries.

The demand follows what the ACLU says was an inadequate response by prison officials to a Freedom of Information Act request by a California graduate student writing a thesis on the censorship of religious materials in federal prisons.

According to the ACLU Joshua C. Harris, a master’s degree candidate in religion at Claremont Graduate University, is writing a thesis on the 2007 implementation of the Standardized Chapel Library Project, which authorized BOP officials to purge from prison chapel libraries any material that was not on a list of “acceptable” publications that the libraries could maintain. Among those titles banned at the time, the ACLU says, was Maimonides’ “Code of Jewish Law.”

“The refusal of prison officials to provide a full accounting of their rationale for banning religious material is just the latest example of an ongoing effort to secretly and unconstitutionally censor material they consider to be unacceptable,” David Shapiro, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project, said in a statement. “To deny prisoners their constitutional right to access religious materials is bad enough. But to attempt to do so in a way that skirts transparency and prevents the public from knowing what they are doing is entirely unacceptable.”

Harris filed a FOIA request in April asking for “any/all documents that detail the reasoning behind, and implementation of” the Standardized Chapel Library Project, according to the ACLU. The prison bureau gave him four documents.

Continue reading "ACLU demands prison records" »

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Categories: Church and State, Education, Judaism
        

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opens a four-day general assembly Monday at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel.

On the agenda for the semiannual meeting are several items related to marriage and reproduction. The bishops are to debate and vote on “Love and Life in the Divine Plan, a pastoral letter that the conference describes as presenting “the essential points of Catholic teaching on marriage that are foundational for understanding the nature and purposes of marriage, for living it faithfully, and for preserving and defending it as a necessary and unique social institution.”

The bishops also are also scheduled to hear a report on efforts by the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage “to promote and protect marriage as the exclusive and permanent union between a man and a woman.” And they are scheduled to debate and vote on “Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology, a document discussing the moral issues surrounding various technologies for treating infertility, including in vitro fertilization, embryo adoption and surrogacy.

Also on the agenda: a proposed revision of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services that “states more definitively the moral obligation to provide medically assisted nutrition and hydration to patients in a ‘persistent vegetative state.’ ”

The proceedings are to be streamed live on the Web at telecare.org.

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As he steps down as moderator of Jewish affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal William Keeler has some advice for his successor: Keep your ears open.

“I saw this most recently on a conference call that we had with Jewish and Catholic leaders on the document “Covenant and Mission,” he tells The Baltimore Jewish Times. The statement by the bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs initially characterized interfaith exchange with Jews as an opportunity to proselytize the Jews.

“We agreed that we would change the two sentences from that which were a concern” Keeler tells the Jewish Times. “Put that into historical context and I just have to say that the relationships are superb and that we are making progress all the time.”

Keeler says he told Pope Benedict XVI that Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York was “the ideal person” to succeed him. He also discusses his appreciation of his faith’s Jewish roots:

I say the Psalms every day and I’m very conscious of their Hebrew authorship. I also think of the Church’s document on the Hebrew Scriptures that was prepared by the present pope and the introduction that he wrote for it is important and something that we live by.

I read every day from this book, “The Liturgy of the Hours,” as all priests are supposed to do. We read Psalms. Not all of them. There are a few that are so angry that they are omitted from the office, which is what we call the book — “The Divine Office of The Office Of Prayer.” It’s a marvelous source. Right now we’re reading from the Second Book of Maccabees.

Read the story at jewishtimes.com.

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Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien will celebrate a Mass at 12:30 p.m. Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.

Built with a bequest from Baltimore merchant Thomas O’Neill and dedicated by Archbishop Francis P. Keough on Nov. 15, 1959, the structure at 5400 N. Charles St. serves as the cathedral church of the archdiocese, as well as a parish for Catholics in North Baltimore.

Some facts, courtesy of the Archdiocese of Baltimore:

The cathedral is 375 feet long, with towers reaching 134 feet and spires rising another 29 feet. It seats a total of 1,900, with 1,400 in pews. It was built from 3.5 million bricks and 70,000 pieces of limestone. It contains 385 sculptures and more than 7,000 organ pipes.

Ground was broken on the 25-acre lot Oct. 10, 1954. Construction was completed by Turner Construction Company of New York and Philadelphia.

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Categories: Catholicism, Events
        

Well, this much seems to be clear: The Mayan Long Count Calendar does conclude a 5,125-year Great Cycle on or about the Winter Solstice in 2012. Whether that means the end is nigh is another question.

With the release of the film 2012, the doomsday chatter that has long festered on the Internet and late-night talk radio has come out into the open. While details vary, the general gist is that the ancient Maya predicted some sort of cataclysm on 12/21/12, with speculation now coalescing around the appearance of a rogue planet that could disrupt the earth's rotation, orbit and/or magnetic poles.

Scientists say that a planet approaching Earth could, indeed, wreak havoc. But if one were on its way, we'd have seen it by now.

The best comment I heard while reporting a story on the phenomenon for Friday's newspaper came from Ben Radford, managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer: "I've got a calendar on my wall that ends on Dec. 31. I'm not particularly worried that there isn't going to be another one after it."

The comparison is apt, according to an anthropologist who studies the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica.

Continue reading "The end of the world as we know it?" »

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A mosque in Potomac is one of four targeted by federal prosecutors Thursday in what could prove to be one of the largest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, the Associated Press is reporting.

Prosecutors took steps Thursday to seize the four mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by the nonprofit Alavi Foundation, long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

In all, prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets, including bank accounts, Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York City, Maryland, California and Houston, more than 100 acres in Virginia, and a 36-story glass office tower in New York.

John D. Winter, the Alavi Foundation's lawyer, told the AP that it intends to litigate the case and prevail. He said the foundation has been cooperating with the government's investigation for the better part of a year.

A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations expressed concern. Spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said the move comes at a particularly bad time, as American Muslims are fearful of a backlash resulting from the recent shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas.

“Whatever the details of the government’s case against the owners of the mosques, as a civil rights organization we are concerned that the seizure of American houses of worship could have a chilling effect on the religious freedom of citizens of all faiths and may send a negative message to Muslims worldwide,” he said.

Continue reading "Feds seek seizure of Potomac mosque" »

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Categories: International, Islam
        

Are we alone in the universe? The Vatican would like to know.

Catholic News Service has a report from a meeting of 30 scientists convened by the Vatican Observatory and the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences to consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

The Rev. José Funes, the Jesuit priest who heads the Vatican Observatory, tells CNS that discoveries of life in inhospitable conditions on Earth, such as rock-eating microbes found deep beneath the ocean floor, suggest that life may also exist on other worlds.

Funes said it is "very important that the church is involved in this type of research." According to CNS, he quoted Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, president of the commission governing Vatican City, as telling participants that "truth from research cannot make us afraid; what is to be feared is error.”

Asked whether God would have to be incarnated elsewhere if there were intelligent life on another planet, Funes said God's incarnation in Jesus Christ was a "unique event not only in human history but in the history of the universe and the cosmos.”

The existence of evil and original sin on Earth meant God, the good shepherd, had to leave behind his entire flock to go get his one lost sheep, he said.

Read the rest of the story at catholicnews.com.

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A federal judge has ruled that South Carolina can't issue license plates showing the image of a cross in front of a stained glass window along with the phrase "I Believe,” the Associated Press is reporting.

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled Tuesday that the license violated the First Amendment ban on establishment of religion by government.

Within hours, a private Christian group said the ruling doesn't stand in the way of its "Plan B" to get a similar plate issued using a state law that permits private groups to issue tags they design, according to the AP.

The fight over the plates started shortly after Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer helped push the legislation through in 2008, the AP reports. Groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee challenged the state's ability to put a religious message on a state license tag.

Read the rest of the story.

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Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat dismayed by the House vote over the weekend to prohibit taxpayer subsidies for insurance policies that cover abortion in the healthcare overhaul, is saying maybe the IRS should investigate the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church following its lobbying effort for the restriction.

“I expect political hardball on any legislation as important as the health care bill,” Woolsey writes in Politico. “I just didn’t expect it from the United States Council [sic] of Catholic Bishops … Who elected them to Congress?”

Abortion rights supporters say the restriction will effectively deny abortion for the low- and moderate-income women whom the healthcare overhaul is intended to insure. The U.S. Conference (not Council) of Catholic Bishops, which supports universal health insurance coverage but opposes abortion, lobbied hard for the restriction as the healthcare bill neared a vote on Saturday.

Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien told us on Monday that it was appropriate for Catholics to make their beliefs known during the healthcare debate.

"When it comes to abortion and research on human life, we can't compromise on those things," he said. "Once we get the foundation established that human life has to be respected, then let the debate go on as to what the health bill will contain."

But Woolsey says the bishops’ effort went beyond advocacy.

“They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure. And this political effort was subsidized by taxpayers, since the Council enjoys tax-exempt status.”

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Ten area Jewish organizations have received $250,000 in federal homeland security grants, the Baltimore Jewish Council announced.

The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, of which the Baltimore Jewish Council is an agency, will receive $45,000. Talmudical Academy of Baltimore in Pikesville will receive $15,000 and the Jewish Federation of Howard County will receive $2,999.

The rest of the money is to be divided among seven area synagogues: Avodas Yisroel Machzikei Torah, Beit Yaakov Congregation, Har Sinai Congregation, Ohr Hamizrach Congregation, Shaarei Tfiloh Congregation, Shearith Israel Congregation and Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore.

"Keeping our community safe is a critical part of the work done by the Baltimore Jewish Council," Jimmy Berg, chairman of the Associated board, said in a statement. " Maryland was the first state in the nation to provide federal funds to enhance security at Jewish institutions. The Baltimore Jewish Council continues to advise and lobby state and federal officials about the security concerns of our community's synagogues, schools and other organizations."

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)