Knights Renew Commitment Against Anti-Life Lawmakers

QUEBEC CITY – The Knights of Columbus adopted resolutions Aug. 7 at their 126th annual convention in Quebec City renewing their commitment to speak out against elected government representatives who challenge life from conception to natural death.

They also resolved to call for “legal and constitutional protection ... for the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.”

Regarding life issues, they renewed their “deep commitment to oppose any governmental action or policy that promotes abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, euthanasia, assisted suicide and other offenses against life.”

The Knights also adopted resolutions regarding religious liberty, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, decency on the Internet and in the media, Catholic education and the continued use of “under God” in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

Court Asked to Throw Out Resolution Critical of Church Adoption Stand

SAN FRANCISCO – A San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolution harshly critical of official Catholic teaching against adoption by same-sex couples crosses the constitutional line between church and state and should be thrown out as unlawful, an attorney for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights told a federal appeals court panel.

The resolution, adopted March 21, 2006, by an 11-0 vote of the city and county governing body, not only condemns Catholic beliefs but urges church subordinates to defy Vatican authority, attorney Robert Muise said during a July 16 hearing in San Francisco.

“It’s remarkable,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Muise, who works for the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., a public-interest law firm that defends Christian religious beliefs, said later that he expected a ruling within a year.

Florida Official Praises Ruling Allowing Vote on Faith-Based Programs

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The executive director of the Florida Catholic Conference praised an Aug. 4 circuit court ruling that clears the way for voters to decide whether the state constitution should be amended to allow public funding of faith-based and school-choice programs.

D. Michael McCarron called the decision “a pivotal step toward safeguarding health, education and social service programs in which Floridians benefit through the participation of faith-based providers.”

Circuit Court Judge John C. Cooper ruled that a decision by the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission to place two proposed amendments on the Nov. 4 ballot did not exceed the commission’s authority.

The first, Ballot Initiative 7, would repeal a provision of the state constitution that prohibits spending public funds on religious institutions.

The second, Ballot Initiative 9, would change a section of the constitution to explicitly allow the public funding of scholarships, including those to religious and other private schools.

Chicago Catholic School Plants a Seed in Its Efforts to Go Green

CHICAGO – St. Monica Catholic Academy in Chicago looks like plenty of other Catholic schools: clean and neat, with lots of student-created artwork on the walls.

But the seeds of an idea that have germinated at the school are now beginning to grow and bear fruit.

St. Monica is the first environmental academy in the Archdiocese of Chicago with a curriculum its faculty wrote in cooperation with education experts from the Chicago Botanic Garden.

The students, ranging from preschoolers to eighth-graders, will learn about ecology and how to care for the environment on a campus that will include solar panels on the roof, a permeable concrete parking lot, native plantings and an urban farm.

Physical changes to the campus began in spring of this year.

Currently six solar panels on the roof provide electricity for some classrooms, courtesy of the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.

During the summer the Illinois concrete industry rebuilt the parking lot with heat-reflecting “whitetop” and pervious concrete that allows rainwater to flow through to the ground.

Pope Says as China’s Influence Grows, It Should Be Open to Gospel

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI, visiting the birthplace of an Italian missionary to China, said that as China’s economic, cultural and political influence grows “it is important that this great nation opens itself to the Gospel.”

St. Joseph Freinademetz, who was born in the northern Italian village of Oies, showed the Chinese people of the late 19th century that it was possible to maintain their culture and remain fully Chinese while embracing the Gospel, the pope said.

The pope and his brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, went by helicopter Aug. 5 from their vacation residence at the Bressanone seminary to Oies to visit the house where St. Freinademetz was born.

Speaking to several thousand people who had gathered to see him in Oies, Pope Benedict said the saint “shows us the path of life and is also a sign for the future of the church.”

He said, “He is a saint of great relevance: We know that China is becoming more and more important in political and economic life and also in the life of ideas.”

Kerala Bishops Oppose ‘Draconian’ State Family Planning Bill

BANGALORE, India – Catholic bishops in the Indian state of Kerala said they would oppose state legislation that they feel penalizes large families.
“We will protest at all levels to ensure that this draconian proposal would never be passed,” said Syro-Malabar Archbishop Andrews Thazhath of Trichur, secretary of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council.

“We do not think this (bill) is a serious move. It is more a publicity stunt,” Archbishop Thazhath told Catholic News Service Aug. 4.

“If the government is serious about this bill, we will spare no effort to oppose it,” he added.

“This (bill) violates the fundamental freedom guaranteed under the constitution.”

The proposed Kerala Family Planning and Control Bill would fine families about $238 for having a third child and would deny access to free education and free treatment in government hospitals to families with more than two children.

The average per capita income in Kerala is about $675 per year.

Pilgrimage Bus Crashes En Route to Marian Days; At Least 14 Dead

SHERMAN, Texas – At least 14 parishioners from Houston-area Vietnamese Catholic churches were killed early Aug. 8 when the pilgrimage bus they were taking to Marian Days in Carthage, Mo., ran off a highway overpass north of Dallas and crashed onto the road below.

Family members of the dead and injured hurried to Dallas after the early morning crash, while others gathered at Our Lady of Lavang and Vietnamese Martyrs churches in Houston to pray and await word on victims.

Special Masses were planned for Houston and Dallas Vietnamese parishes the evening of the accident.

Annette Gonzales Taylor, communications director for the Dallas Diocese, told Catholic News Service in a phone interview that St. Patrick Church in Dennison and St. Mary Church in Sherman, near the site of the crash, prepared places for family members to gather, rest, get a meal and receive other assistance.

British Govt. Permits Church to Exhume Cardinal Newman’s Body

LONDON – The British government has agreed to allow the exhumation of the body of a 19th-century cardinal whose cause for sainthood widely is expected to progress soon to beatification.

The Ministry of Justice granted a license to allow undertakers to dig up the body of Cardinal John Henry Newman from a grave in a small cemetery in the suburbs of Birmingham, England, and transfer it to a marble sarcophagus in a church in the city, where it can be venerated by pilgrims.

Approval had been delayed by several months because of a 19th-century law that forbids the transfer of bodies from graves to church tombs.