- Return to regular schedule
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With this issue, Catholic Times returns to its regular bi-weekly schedule, after special coverage of the reception and installation of Bishop Thomas John Paprocki.
The next issue of Catholic Times will be July 18.
- CNS News
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3 Minute Roundup
| Pope announces pontifical council for new evangelization |
| VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI announced he is establishing a pontifical council for new evangelization to find ways “to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel” in regions where secularism is smothering church practice. Leading an evening prayer service June 28 at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Pope Benedict said there are areas of the globe that have been known as Christian for centuries, but where in the past few centuries “the process of secularization has produced a serious crisis” in people’s sense of what it means to be Christian and to belong to the church. “I have decided to create a new organism, in the form of a pontifical council, with the principal task of promoting a renewed evangelization in the countries where the first proclamation of faith has already resounded and where there are churches of ancient foundation present, but which are living through a progressive secularization of society and a kind of ‘eclipse of the sense of God,’” he said. The pope did not say what the formal name of the pontifical council would be and he did not announce who would head it, although in the weeks leading to the announcement, Vatican commentators suggested it would be Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, currently president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. (CNS) |
| High court won’t review case claiming Vatican liable for abuser |
| WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has left standing a lower court ruling that will allow an Oregon man to try to hold the Vatican financially responsible for his sexual abuse by a priest, if he can persuade the court that the priest was an employee of the Vatican. By declining to take Holy See v. John Doe, the court June 28 left intact the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said because of the way Oregon law defines employment, the Vatican is not protected under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act from potential liability for the actions of a priest who Doe, the unidentified plaintiff, said sexually abused him in the 1960s. The case will now go back to U.S. District Court, where Doe’s attorneys will attempt to prove that the late Andrew Ronan, a former Servite priest who was laicized in 1966, was a Vatican employee at the time the events took place. In order for the District Court to have ruled that the case could move forward, a lower standard of having adequately “pleaded” a connection between Ronan and the Vatican had to be met. Before the issue of liability of the Holy See can be addressed, Doe’s attorneys will have to persuade the court under a higher standard “proving” that Ronan was a Vatican employee. (CNS) |
| Sainthood cause opened for Brooklyn priest who fought bigotry |
| BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In the midst of a New York heat wave, a small parish in Brooklyn opened a new chapter in the diocese’s history. About 200 people gathered June 24 at St. Peter Claver Church for the formal opening of an inquiry into the cause of canonization of Msgr. Bernard J. Quinn, who spent his life advocating for African-American Catholics in the Diocese of Brooklyn. Msgr. Quinn, who was born in 1888 and died in 1940, was founding pastor of the all-black St. Peter Claver Parish and founder of Little Flower Children Services to care for black orphans. Today, St. Peter Claver is one of three worship sites in St. Martin de Porres Parish in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. After vespers on the feast of St. John the Baptist, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn spoke about his personal connection to Msgr. Quinn. A little more than a year ago, on his 65th birthday, the bishop underwent coronary bypass surgery. The doctors considered the surgery a success, he said, but a week later he found himself back in the hospital after fainting. He said blood clots in his lungs and heart threatened his life, and during the fervor that surrounded his second surgery, Msgr. Quinn came to his mind. He could not say why he thought of him or whether it was a miracle, but his prayers to him during that period have turned into a wellspring of devotion. (CNS) |
| Vocation within a vocation |
| Written by Cathy Locher |
| Saturday, 25 April 2009 18:00 |
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Parish priest answers call to minister to military
"There are less than 35 priests for over 200,000 airmen in the Air National Guard, and less than 75 priests for 400,000 active duty airmen in the United States Air Force. The need for Catholic chaplains in the Army and Navy is even greater," says Father Daniel Bergbower, a Springfield diocesan priest, who is a chaplain in the Air National Guard. "Many active duty Air Force bases do not have a priest and rely upon the civilian/diocesan priest in the local community." Father Bergbower was pastor at St. Peter Parish in Quincy in 2005, when Father Tom Donovan arrived at the parish for his first assignment as a parochial vicar, following his ordination. "It was my first or second week in the parish as a new priest, and Father Bergbower was deployed to active duty," Father Donovan says. "I remember saying at the end of a couple of the Masses that Sunday, ‘I am proud to be standing here serving here in Quincy, so that he could be over there, serving there.' Then I remember adding, ‘I could never do it.' "The moment I said that, I heard the deep spiritual question within me ask, ‘why not?' I had let my weight get away from me when I was in the seminary. There I was - a new, 33-year-old priest - who was almost unable to genuflect because of the pain in my knees from being so grossly overweight." Father Donovan went on a weight-loss program after his first Christmas in Quincy, and lost over 40 pounds by the end of the following summer. "When Father Dan returned from another deployment the following summer, he said I was looking great. He asked me if I had ever thought about working with the Guard. I had - even before I was a seminarian or priest - but it was never an option because of my weight and terrible physical condition." Father Donovan talked to Bishop George J. Lucas, and with the bishop's approval, he applied to the Illinois Air National Guard. He was commissioned a first lieutenant, and since April of 2008, he has served with the 182nd Airlift Wing in Peoria. The unit's mission is to transport people and materiel around the world aboard C130 transport aircraft. Father Donovan spends one weekend a month on "drills" with the guard, and additional time on annual training exercises or being deployed with Air Force personnel anywhere in the world.
"Obviously, this requires some coordination in the parish to get schedules lined up and to make sure that parish ministry is fully covered. Right now Father George Morelock, a retired priest of the diocese, is able to help here in Carlinville, so that I can engage in this ministry to the men and women in the military, no small number of whom come from our own parish communities." Father Bergbower says, "Father Donovan knew when he became a chaplain in the Air National Guard that this commitment will take him to minister to our wounded warriors at our Army Hospital in Germany; that he will be asked to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our service people in the Middle East and beyond. He understands that he will face many of the same sacrifices and hardships of our service men and women and bring them the hope of Jesus in the midst of conflict and confusion and loneliness. Father Donovan knows he will need the prayers and support and understanding of his parish and his bishop as he meets these desperate needs of our young people serving far from home and in harm's way." In 2008, Father Donovan was appointed pastor of Ss. Mary and Joseph Parish, Carlinville, and parochial administrator at St. Raymond Parish, in Raymond. Just days after celebrating his first-year anniversary as pastor in Carlinville, he left for a month of Commissioned Officer Training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. Father Donovan explains, "This course is the ‘basic training' for individuals who enter the Air Force with an officer's commission on the basis of professional credentials, such as being a doctor or nurse or lawyer. In our class we also had a number of pharmacists, physical therapists, health care administrators, engineers, and two other chaplains. I was the only Catholic priest. "It was a serious program where we did drill (marching) and PT (physical training) and leadership training. Our instructors knew we were all priests and doctors and nurses, most of whom had no previous military training and were finding the training environment rather stressful. They were firm, however, at making sure that we met Air Force standards so that we could be effective, not only as leaders in our professional fields, but also as officers leading airmen. In the few short weeks I was at COT I still look back to my training flight commander, Captain Toby Smith, as one of the most inspiring mentors of my priestly training and formation I have had. He constantly challenged me to expand my limits and to give even more to the people I serve as a priest and chaplain." Sometime in the next year Father Donovan will take a six-week chaplain course, which will focus on the ministerial skills needed to function pastorally and professionally in an Air Force context.
"My understanding is that as a priest and a National Guard member I have some collaborative control over my future deployment schedule, which no doubt will include the permission of Bishop Lucas and consideration of the needs of my parish," says Father Donovan. "In order to be made available for military service, Bishop Lucas needed to introduce and recommend me to the Archdiocese of the Military Services, which extends to me the priestly faculties necessary to minister to Catholics with the United States military throughout the world. It is literally ‘an archdiocese without borders.' The archdiocese of the Military Services does not ordain or incardinate its own priests, so all priests associated with the military are, essentially, "on loan" from a regular, territorial diocese. "Right now, I am 80 pounds lighter than my first Christmas in Quincy, and I can actually run and do a fair number of pushups and sit-ups without feeling like a heart attack about to happen," says Father Donovan. "Obviously, I am not joining the Guard to get and stay fit. There are health clubs for that. Service to our military personnel and having the opportunities to be available for that ministry was never an option before becoming serious about turning my life around on this issue. I have Father Dan to thank for his encouragement, both for the sake of my own health, and for inviting me to think about this new opportunity for priestly ministry. "Military service is a call within a vocational call that I never seriously anticipated," says Father Donovan. "I love being a parish priest and that is where I belong. But serving in the Air National Guard is helping me as a pastor and leader in my parish, and, I hope, drawing parishioners into prayerful support of those who live a very different life of vocation and sacrifice in service to our nation. "In the years to come, I hope to be able to do some small part in bringing the church to our young men and women in the field. As difficult as things are becoming in our parishes where there is one priest for every 1,500 Catholics in our diocese, it is even worse for our service personnel. My understanding is that personnel in the field sometimes go for months without receiving holy Communion or being able to offer their confession. This is because in the Active Duty Air Force, there is only one Catholic priest for about every 5,000 Catholics. Because the sacraments are only possible through priestly ministry and presence, some of us priests need to be willing and able to take military chaplaincy on as a mission and vocation within the vocation of priesthood, if the people of God committed to this life of sacrifice and service are to be properly nourished." |
If the shortage of priests is having a serious impact on parishes throughout the country, it is an even more serious problem in chaplain ministry.
