Catholics Urge Increase for Children’s Health Care

WASHINGTON – Catholic organizations have joined with a variety of medical, civic, labor and other religious groups in calling on Congress to increase funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, despite a threatened veto by President George W. Bush.

Representatives of nearly three dozen organizations participated in a Capitol Hill news conference organized by the Catholic Health Association, which also released a new public opinion poll that showed Americans overwhelmingly support the program known as SCHIP.

“We stand united because we believe Congress and the president should do the right thing for our children and our nation – reauthorize a critically important program that is supported by the vast majority of voters,” said Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is CHA president and CEO.

Twin Cities Lead Nation in Rate of Volunteerism

WASHINGTON – Minneapolis-St. Paul led the nation in a new federal study that ranked volunteer rates among the populations of the nation’s major metropolitan areas.

The study, by the Washington-based Corporation for National and Community Service, found that Minneapolis-St. Paul and the rest of middle America had the highest percentages of individuals donating their time and services.

The Twin Cities’ top ranking in the study came as no surprise to a representative at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

About 41% of the population there gives time to community service.

“I think some of it’s just the spirit of giving in this community,” said Dawn Lindblom, Catholic Charities’ director of volunteer services.

Bequest Helps Religious Orders Cope with Retirement

WASHINGTON – Thanks to a bequest of about $300,000, Support Our Aging Religious was able to award a total of $850,000 in grants to 50 religious orders in 43 states and Puerto Rico.

The grants from SOAR bring the total amount given to religious orders to more than $7 million since SOAR’s founding in 1986.

The $850,000 represented the largest amount of money distributed in one year, and the $302,750 bequest represented the largest single gift to SOAR in its 21-year history.

SOAR’s board of directors had originally approved $600,000 in grants – about half of what had been requested by religious orders.

The bequest, from H. Farrell Gilmore of Palm Springs, Calif., also gave rise to the SOAR Legacy Group, a vehicle for donors to address the particular request of a congregation, such as capital needs like new windows, fire or alarm systems, handicapped-accessible transportation or equipment, or similar needs.

One Bishop Appointed for Two Canadian Dioceses

VATICAN CITY – The Canadian dioceses of Moosonee and Hearst in Ontario will exist as separate dioceses “united in the person of the bishop,” the Vatican announced.

Pope Benedict XVI has given Bishop Vincent Cadieux of Moosonee the additional title of bishop of Hearst.

Bishop Cadieux has served as apostolic administrator of Hearst since July 2006.

The 67-year-old bishop was appointed head of the Moosonee Diocese in 1991.

According to Vatican statistics, the Diocese of Moosonee has about 6,200 Catholics in a population of 27,500.

The Diocese of Hearst, with its 28,000 Catholics, has been vacant since Bishop Andre Vallee resigned in November 2005 at the age of 75.

Beyond saying that the same bishop would govern the two dioceses, the Vatican announcement provided no further explanation of the arrangement.

Catholic Lay Leader Hopes To Welcome a Pope to China

AURONZO, Italy – A top official of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association told an Italian newspaper that he hopes one day to be able to welcome a pope to China.
As Pope Benedict XVI walked past journalists July 24 outside the Church of St. Justina in Auronzo, a reporter shouted: “You have been invited. Will you go to China?”

The pope let the reporters know he did not have time to stop and discuss the question.

“I cannot speak at this time,” the pope said. “It’s a bit complicated.”

In an interview, Anthony Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the patriotic association, which acts as a liaison between the Chinese government and Catholic churches, said, “I hope with all my strength to one day see the pope here in Beijing.”

In the interview with La Repubblica, Liu said members of registered Catholic communities in China “follow exactly the same religion as the church of Rome. We are independent only from a political point of view.”

Liu told the newspaper, “We recognize the unique authority of the pope in matters of religion.”

Colombian Catholic Tribunal Clears Priest Who Confessed

BOGOTA, Colombia – A Colombian Catholic Church tribunal has cleared a priest who confessed to sexually abusing seminarians – including some in the United States – decades ago.

The Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Bogota ruled that both the Church’s and the civil court’s statutes of limitations had expired, “totally exempting” Father Efrain Rozo Rincon from prosecution.

The tribunal also found that Father Rozo deserved a “presumption of innocence.”

The tribunal praised Father Rozo for “promoting for almost 50 years a modern and active apostolate with students and youths through sports” and pointed out that “there have not been formal accusations of incorrect behavior in this court.”

Last October, Father Rozo confessed on tape to U.S. lawyers representing his nephew, Ernesto Rozo, who sued the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where some of the alleged abuses occurred.

Father Rozo was assigned to Los Angeles and worked at Loyola Marymount University, 1967-69.

Father Rozo admitted to abusing a seminary student and his nephew 40 years ago.
In the U.S. civil case, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to compensate Ernesto Rozo.

Philippine President Backs Concern of the Bishops

QUEZON CITY, Philippines – The agenda President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced for the second half of her term includes issues that some Philippine bishops have targeted as concerns.

In her State of the Nation address, Arroyo told officials and guests that her administration will focus on fighting poverty and hunger and generating foreign investments.

“It is my wish that the Philippines be among the ranks of developed nations in 20 years,” Arroyo said.

“By then,” she added, “poverty shall have been marginalized and the (formerly) marginalized raised to a robust middle class.”

The president, whose term ends in 2010, said her administration will work to counter poverty and hunger through infrastructure and other projects focused in underdeveloped regions, such as Mindanao in the southern Philippines.

GALLUP, N.M. – Surgery for Bishop Donald E. Pelotte of Gallup to repair facial injuries he sustained in a fall at his home was postponed as he healed at a Phoenix hospital, diocesan statements said July 26.

Bishop Pelotte, 62, was discovered at his home with the injuries July 23, when a member of the diocesan staff went to check on him after the bishop did not keep scheduled meetings that morning.

One of a pair of statements issued by the diocese said Father James E. Walker, vicar general, had assumed administration of the diocese for the time being.

Father Walker said the bishop is making progress and that the postponement of surgery was a good sign.

“Every day he seems to be improving, even over this short time span,” said Father Walker in a statement.

Dot Teso, director of the Catholic People’s Foundation, the diocese’s development arm, told Catholic News Service in phone interviews that, although Bishop Pelotte has been in intensive care at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital, he has been conscious.

She said the diocesan staff was told that the bishop’s prognosis for full recovery was good.

MOBILE, Ala. – After two statues were desecrated and a third was stolen from the grounds of a Catholic church in the Mobile Archdiocese, police arrested two men and two women July 24 and charged them with third-degree theft of property.

At St. Vincent de Paul Church in Tillman’s Corner, a suburban area just west of Mobile, two life-size statues, one of the parish’s patron and one of Our Lady of Grace, were desecrated.

A smaller statue of Our Lady of Grace was stolen.

“I’m mystified,” said the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul, Father Frank Sofie, as he talked with reporters outside the church. “As Catholics we see these statues as much more than church property, but as sacred images of revered saints.”