Spokane Parishes Start to Raise $10M for Abuse Claims

SPOKANE, Wash. – Parishes of the Spokane Diocese have started local fundraising campaigns to raise $10 million collectively as their contribution to the diocese’s $48 million clergy sexual abuse settlement with 180 victims.

In an assessment based on parish income, two of the largest parishes, St. Mary in Spokane and St. Patrick in Pasco, are responsible for raising more than $600,000 each, according to a parish-by-parish listing in the May 3 issue of the Inland Register, the Spokane diocesan newsmagazine.

In an article in that issue Father Steve Dublinski, diocesan vicar general, explained that part of the settlement approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams includes a diocesewide reorganization of the parishes.

“The parishes of the diocese will cease being unincorporated associations which cannot by law hold their own property and will incorporate as nonprofit, nonmember corporations,” he wrote.

“The parish will now own and hold its property. Who owns parish property will never again be a question.”

Metuchen Diocese Named As Adoption-Friendly

METUCHEN, N.J. – The Diocese of Metuchen has been named one of the 100 best adoption-friendly workplaces in the United States for 2007 by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

The diocese was recognized as 92nd best among small, medium and large employers and industry leaders, and fourth best among nonprofit organizations, the foundation announced.

“We are pleased to assist families as they respond to God’s call to love and discipleship,” said Metuchen Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski.

“Adoption is the deliberate choice families make to extend the natural boundaries of their family.

“The Church is grateful for these parents who are generously giving their children not only the gift of their hearts but the gift of faith in Jesus Christ,” he added. “Families are all part of God’s plan. We see the adoption program as another way to help families live out their vocation as God intended.”

According to diocesan officials, the Diocese of Metuchen was the first Catholic diocese in the United States to provide adoption assistance to employees when it unveiled its program in November 2005.

Mexican Bishop Threatened For Helping Victims of Rape

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – A Mexican bishop said he has been threatened for advocating on behalf of 13 women allegedly raped by Mexican soldiers.

Bishop Raul Vera Lopez of Saltillo, known as a champion of indigenous and other human rights, said he has been “under pressure and receiving threats not to get involved in the case” of the sex-trade workers who said they were raped last July.

Bishop Vera, whose diocese is in northern Mexico, said that he has received phone calls at home in the middle of the night.

One of the calls told him to “be extremely careful,” he said, adding that another spoke of sending him a ticket for a journey “to the other side.”

The victims claimed the rapes occurred in July in Castanos, a town near Monclova, a steel-producing center approximately 120 miles south of the Texas border.
The alleged attackers in Castanos were guarding ballots after the disputed July 2 presidential election.

California Suicide Bill Seen As ‘Implicitly Anti-Catholic’

SAN FRANCISCO – Calling proposed California physician-assisted suicide legislation “strongly and implicitly anti-Catholic” and accusing its advocates of “trying to bend the Catholic Church’s moral teaching to the will of the culture of death agenda,” an international expert on bioethics urged listeners to do everything in their power to help defeat the controversial bill.

Titled the California Compassionate Choices Act, Assembly Bill 374 would allow physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to people diagnosed with a terminal illness, given less than six months to live and declared mentally competent.

Wesley J. Smith, keynote speaker at the annual public policy breakfast sponsored by the San Francisco Archdiocese’s Office of Public Policy and Social Concerns and held at St. Mary’s Cathedral, said the measure seeks to establish “ending life as an appropriate way to relieve suffering.”

Once that premise has been established, he said, it becomes logical to extend what would be seen “as a legitimate medical treatment” to the chronically ill, the terminally ill at any stage, individuals in intractable pain and even those who are depressed.

Bangladesh Church Officials Fight to Quash Priest’s Arrest

BANGALORE, India – Church officials in Bangladesh have been lobbying the government to quash an arrest warrant issued against a missionary priest working among exploited indigenous people.

“We want the government to quash this (case) and take action against those who have registered the fabricated case against (Oblate) Father (Joseph) Gomes,” Oblate Father Emil Moraes told CNS from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Father Moraes is Father Gomes’ regional superior.

The local court issued an arrest warrant against Father Gomes, head of the Oblates’ justice, peace and creation ministry, after forest officials filed several charges against the activist priest.

The charges included instigating an “unlawful trespass into government-acquired forest, cutting and removing trees, and forcefully encroaching forest zone,” thereby causing the government a loss of nearly $200,000.

Father Moraes said, “In fact, he was attending a meeting with tribal people (at Khadimnagar) when this alleged crime is said to have been committed.”

Vatican Broadcasts Will Begin High Definition

VATICAN CITY – Keeping in step with the fast pace of communications technology, the Vatican television center is to begin broadcasting in high definition.
The first papal event to be aired using the new format will be a special April 15 Mass celebrating Pope Benedict XVI’s April 16 birthday.

“We’ve realized that if we want to continue to do a good job of broadcasting footage of the pope to other television stations, we have to be ready for the day” when high definition is expected to become the norm in television broadcasting, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman and head of the Vatican television center..

Congregation Recommends Pope Pius XII Be Venerable

VATICAN CITY – Members of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes met May 8 to consider the cause of Pope Pius XII and apparently voted to recommend that Pope Benedict XVI formally declare him venerable.

Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Vatican press office, confirmed the congregation had met, but since the result of the vote still had to be presented to the pope he would not say what the result was.

Italian newspapers, citing unnamed sources, said the congregation’s cardinals and archbishops recommended that Pope Benedict formally recognize that Pope Pius lived the Christian virtues in a heroic manner.

Once the pope issues a decree recognizing heroic virtues, the candidate is referred to as venerable.

Before a candidate can be beatified, the pope also must issue a decree recognizing a miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession. A second miracle is needed for canonization.

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities urged two congressional committees to maintain current funding levels for abstinence education and said programs that promote “safe sex” and contraception offer young people a “compromised” message.

In a letter to members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia said the more than 500 abstinence programs currently in place in the U.S. “form character and educate our youth about the decisions they face, empowering them to make healthy choices that do not jeopardize their health and future.”