Category Archives: News

News

The Martyrs of Drina

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On Saturday, September 24th, the Church beatified five Croatian and Austrian nuns who were kidnapped and later killed during World War II. The beatification took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia, with upwards of 20,000 people in attendance. Cardinal Angelo Amato from the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints presided at the celebration.

The new blesseds–Jula Ivanisevic, Berchmana Leidenix, Krizina Bojanc, Antonija Fabjan and Bernadeta Banja–were all members of the Daughters of Divine Charity. They served the poor in the Serbian village of Pale. Serb soldiers burned their convent in late 1941.

The nuns were then marched 40 miles in freezing conditions to military barracks near the east Bosnian town of Gorazde. The soldiers beat and tried to rape them. The nuns jumped out of the second-floor windows, and soldiers later stabbed to death those still alive.

“The news of the deaths of the five sisters spread quickly in Sarajevo. Even though it was a time of war, the people remembered them and prayed to the martyrs of Drina, as they were called, for their intercession,” Sr. Maria Ozana Krajacic recalled in a recent edition of the L’Osservatore Romano.

The holy sisters’ story is recounted in the book, The Drina Martyrs, written by Fr. Anto Bakovic.

News, Papal Address

A Radical Life

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In his column for the September 2011 New Earth, the newspaper for the Diocese of Fargo, Bishop Samuel Aquila shared his own rich experience of World Youth Day. Toward the end of his column, he quoted at length Pope Benedict XVI’s address to young women religious, given during his August 19th meeting with them:

“It is not by accident that consecrated life is ‘born from hearing the word of God and embracing the Gospel as its rule of life. A life devoted to following Christ in his chastity, poverty, and obedience becomes a living exegesis of God’s word. . . . Every charism and every rule springs from it and seeks to be an expression of it, thus opening up new pathways of Christian living marked by the radicalism of the Gospel'” (Verbum Domini, 83).

“This Gospel radicalism means being ‘rooted and built up in Christ, and firm in the faith'” (cf. Colossians 2:7). In the consecrated life, this means going to the very root of the love of Jesus Christ with an undivided heart, putting nothing ahead of this love (cf. St. Benedict, Rule, IV, 21) and being completely devoted to him, the Bridegroom, as were the saints, like Rose of Lima and Rafael Arnáiz, the young patrons of this World Youth Day.

“Your lives must testify to the personal encounter with Christ, which has nourished your consecration, and to all the transforming power of that encounter. Continue reading A Radical Life →

News

The Vocation of a Theologian

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Theologians gathered in Washington, D.C. earlier this month for a symposium to help prepare them for the new evangelization. The event was open to selected non-tenured theology or religious studies faculty members who have received their doctoral degrees within the last five years.

The speakers looked to the Church’s rich history as they offered advice on how to present the Gospel in a modern university setting.

One of the speakers that caught my attention was Archbishop J.A. DiNoia, O.P., who serves as the secretary for the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He addressed the symposium participants on the nature of theology as a field of study having internal roots within man.

God’s immense love for us is not something that we could have figured out simply “on the basis of thinking about God,” he said.

The infused theological virtue of faith received in Baptism allows for “the participation in God’s knowledge of Himself,” he added.

Therefore, the archbishop explained, the principles of theology come from the knowledge of God infused in us.

The challenge for the new evangelization, said Archbishop DiNoia is “securing the integrity and finality of theology as a distinctive field of inquiry.”

He urged the symposium participants to resist the “fragmentation of theology into disparate subviews and specializations,” as well as internal secularization within the Church.

In addition, he called for them to be courageous in recognizing the “compatibility between an academic profession and an ecclesial vocation,” seeing their work not merely as a job, but as a calling.

Courtesy of Catholic News Agency. For more on the vocation of the theologian and his or her relationship to the Magisterium, see this 1990 instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith.

News

Building the Church on–and in–the “Rock”

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architectural drawing of new House of Formation in Little Rock

The former convent at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Little Rock, Arkansas will once again be a place to support religious vocations.

Last month, Bishop Anthony B. Taylor announced that the Diocese of Little Rock will be establishing a new House of Formation for current and potential seminarians at the Sisters of Mercy convent, which was used for religious education classes and parish offices until 2009. Msgr. Scott Friend, vocations director, said the house, slated to open next year, will have bedrooms for ten seminarians or discerners, two priest apartments, kitchen, meeting room/library, dining room, common area and chapel.
He also said that the House of Formation will have a constant presence in the lives of Catholics in the area, especially at Good Counsel. Instead of being photographs on a vocations poster, the men will be present at parish and diocesan events. He said this will help continue to foster a “culture of vocations” in Little Rock.

News

On the Road Again

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The “Running Nuns” of St. Charles Children’s Home in Rochester, New Hampshire are holding their 15th Annual Labor Day 5k Road Race this Labor Day.

The road race fundraiser has helped the sisters provide hundreds of children with the guidance, therapy, and love they need to prepare them for life with new families. All proceeds of the road race go to benefit the children at the St. Charles Children’s Home.

News

No Girl Altar Servers at Phoenix Cathedral

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The rector of Sts. Simon and Jude Church, the cathedral of the Diocese of Phoenix, has announced that girls will no longer be allowed to serve at Masses there.

For more of the story, click here. The article incorrectly noted that girls have been allowed to serve at Mass since 1983. Actually, such permission was not given until 1994.

At any rate, girls now function as altar servers everywhere in the United States, except in the Diocese of Lincoln and a handful of more traditional parishes scattered throughout the country. Continue reading No Girl Altar Servers at Phoenix Cathedral →

News

New Soldiers for Christ

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In a news release earlier this month, the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA reported a steady increase in the number of young men entering Catholic seminaries who would like to become military chaplains.

At the start of the 2011-2012 academic year, the number of co-sponsored and military-affiliated seminarians will stand at 31, up sharply from just three in 2008-2009; 12 in 2009-2010; and 23 in 2010-2011.

Co-sponsorship means that a diocesan bishop agrees to accept the young man as a seminarian, and that the seminarian will participate in the Chaplain Candidacy Program of one of the branches of the U.S. armed forces. The bishop agrees to release him for service as a military chaplain after three years of pastoral experience as a priest in his diocese. When the priest leaves military service, he returns to the diocese.

Father Kerry Abbott, O.F.M. Conv., Director of Vocations, said, “This is one of the ‘untold stories’ of the blessings of the Holy Spirit upon the Church Continue reading New Soldiers for Christ →

News

Religious Sisters of Mercy

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Earlier this month, five young women took their final vows as Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma. This community is especially devoted to the practice of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

The event took place at the Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption in Saginaw, Michigan, at a Mass celebrated  by Most Rev. Joseph R. Cistone, Bishop of Saginaw, will celebrate the Mass. Read more about it here.

These are sharp sisters, by the way. The group that took their final vows includes a medical resident, a medical student, and a doctoral student in psychology, while the other two are studying theology in Rome. Wow!

News

Sedevacantist Sisters Reunite with Church

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The National Catholic Register published last week an article chronicling the journey of fifteen sisters who broke away from their sedevacantist community in 2007 to form the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Church. This community is a public association of the faithful approved in 2008 by Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington.

Read the full story here.

Their original community was initially a traditional order founded with the approval of Church authorities, but its founder and members eventually embraced sedevacantism–the view that the current Pope is not a true pope. They were highly critical of the Church hierarchy after Vatican II and eventually broke away from the Church.

Sr. Mary Eucharista, a member of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Church, cites several factors that led to the departure of fifteen women from that community from sedevacantism and their return to full communion with the Church, including a visit from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, the orthodox programming of EWTN Global Catholic Radio, and the election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.