Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2014 / 04:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - Hundreds of pilgrims and faithful from all states of life flocked to Washington, D.C.'s St. John Paul II Shrine on Wednesday to celebrate the late Pope and recently canonized saint’s first universal feast day.
“To be able to celebrate in the presence of a saint on their first feast day, I think is just a point of great grace for the local Church and all the pilgrims that come here,” said Fr. Jonathan Kalisch, O.P, chaplain of the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, to CNA Oct. 22.
This presence, he said, was apparent in the large and diverse crowd who came to participate in a feast day Mass at the shrine.
At the Mass, there were “over 550 young people, the elderly, there were Polish pilgrims, the consecrated, the sisters, there were male religious,” Fr. Kalisch explained. “ When I was celebrating the Mass, I thought, ‘he’s brought them here.’”
Instruments of God’s peace
St. Isidore/KSU youth spend spring break at Ronald McDonald House
By SHELBY DANIELSEN
Special to the Register
Editor’s Note: Shelby is a junior at Kansas State University.
Between going down slides, creating hamburgers out of play-dough, piecing together crafts and playing the Toy Story memory game, I ultimately gained a newfound respect for my mother.
“As much fun as that was, children are exhausting; I don’t know how she did it with four!” I thought to myself.
While volunteering at the Ronald McDonald house in Omaha, Nebraska as a part of St. Isidore’s spring break mission trip, I found myself growing humble among the children that surrounded me. One moment they are running around outside and climbing up jungle gyms, and the next, they are beside me at dinner, replacing their toys with feeding tubes and oxygen tanks, yet their enthusiasm for life remained.
As I scanned the room, I noticed that every family with a hospitalized child was bearing a smile. I could feel God’s presence in the room. They were all filled with faith, hope and love in a more extraordinary way than I had ever experienced. My pitiful concerns about homework crumbled. This was a house of unity, overwhelming with support and encouragement.
Ottawa archbishop cancels event, calls for prayers in wake of shooting
BY ELISE HARRIS
Ottawa, Canada, Oct 23, 2014 / 09:57 am (CNA/EWTN News) - The Archdiocese of Ottawa, Canada, released a statement canceling its annual charity dinner in the wake of yesterday’s shooting, and urged Catholics to pray for all those affected by the violent act.
“Even though our annual Charity Dinner is an event which supports and shows our solidarity with the most vulnerable of our community, the tragic events of today take priority in the prayers, thoughts and actions of our Catholic community,” Archbishop Terrence Prendergast said in an Oct. 22 statement.
“For this reason, I have decided to cancel the dinner which was scheduled for this evening at the Ottawa Event and Conference Centre on Coventry Road.”
The archbishop’s statement came after Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, was gunned down by a man with a rifle while standing guard at Canada’s National War Memorial. Minutes later, dozens of shots were fired from inside the parliament building.
Mystery still surrounds Catholic widow implicated in Lincoln attack
By RICHARD SZCZEPANOWSKI
Catholic News Service
CLINTON, Md. (CNS) -- Although Mary Surratt was tried, convicted and executed for her participation in the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, some historians still question just how involved in the scheme the Catholic widow really was.
Was Surratt guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln? Did she know that the original kidnapping plot changed to a more deadly plan of action? Those questions remain some 146 years after President Lincoln's death April 14, 1865, and 150 years after the start of the Civil War April 12, 1861.
Cuban boy bridges cultural gaps as refugee in Miami
“Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy” by Carlos Eire. Free Press
(New York, 2010). 307 pp. $26.
Reviewed by Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service
A gem of a book, “Learning to Die in Miami” is a sublimely written true story of an 11-year-old boy uprooted from his Cuban home in 1962 and flown to Miami without his parents. With the literary craftsmanship of a novelist, Carlos Eire recounts his pilgrimage in search of a new life in a country he has never seen, in a language he does not speak and in a culture he only knows through films and television programs.
Carlos “dies” numerous times in an effort to become Charles, the English equivalent of his Spanish name. Yet something of Carlos always remains. He favors the vivacious bare-bellied, hip-swinging women in Cuba’s carnival parades over the banal baton twirlers in Miami’s Orange Bowl parade. He has trouble understanding how a chicken with all its feathers, legs and beak could be transformed into colorless, tasteless slices of cold cuts. Others also remind him that his past is present in him. Even after he develops a substantial English vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, his classmates laugh at his accent.
Hundreds flock to US shrine to celebrate first feast of St John Paul II
BY ADALAIDE MENA
Dodge City hosts Knights of Columbus annual convention
Knights of Columbus representatives from across Kansas gathered in Dodge City for the 110th annual Kansas State Convention, April 29 - May 2.
On Saturday morning, April 30, Bishop Michael Jackels of Wichita celebrated Mass at the Dodge House Convention Center; the theme for the convention was “The Year of the Volunteer.”
Long know for their willingness to give of their time and treasure to be of service to God’s people and the Church, the Knights honored some of their own for outstanding efforts over the past year.
The event brought not only discussion and informative meetings, but social gatherings as well, as Sunday night all gathered for a barbecue dinner as two longhorn steers stared nervously from an enclosure in the parking lot of the Knights Hall.
Sunday was particularly historic for the ongoing celebration. Not only was it Divine Mercy Sunday, but it also was the day in which Pope John Paul II was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI.
After a day-long gathering at the Knights’ Hall, Bishop John B. Brungardt celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe where he spoke of God’s mercy and how “The hope given us in the resurrection of Jesus sustains us in the difficulties of life.”
Holy See to UN: Share the riches of outer space
New York City, N.Y., Oct 22, 2014 / 06:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News) - The exploration of outer space can deepen our faith in God and our understanding of the world, and its benefits should be shared with all.
This was the message of Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, at the Special Political and Decolonization Committee on Oct. 17.
“Since the earliest days of human history, humanity has looked to the sky with wonder, longing to understand celestial realities and their meaning in relation to humanity itself,” Archbishop Auza said.
“The Holy See believes that faith is capable of both expanding and enriching the horizons of reason; thus, it rejoices in the marvelous progress of science, seeing it both as a product of the enormous God-given potential of the human mind and as manifestation of the vastness and richness of creation.”
Teen Moms’ Program Volunteer Appreciation Reception
Mentors, others, honored for devotion to young moms
Slideshow: Click on the photo to enlarge, then click on "view all" at left to see all the thumbnail photos from the event.
By DAVID MYERS
Southwest Kansas Register
Several “mentors” and other volunteers with Catholic Social Service Teen Moms’ Program were honored April 28 with an award reception at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dodge City.
Sarah Heeke, who recently completed her first year as a mentor, understands well what the young moms are going through. Heeke was 17 and a senior in high school when she found herself pregnant.
“It’s very scary,” she said. “You suddenly find yourself in the middle of the ocean without a life preserver. You don’t have anything in common with any of your friends because they don’t understand where you are in life. At the same time, you don’t have anything in common with all the moms who have kids your child’s age as they are so much older than you and also are at a different place in their life. Being pregnant as a teenager is such an isolating experience.”
'Don’t abandon us' – Church in Mosul 'no longer exists'
By CARL BUNDERSON
Mosul, Iraq, Oct 23, 2014 / 04:21 am (CNA/EWTN News) - Reflecting on his recent trip to the Holy Land and to Iraqi Kurdistan, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City said that for all practical purposes, the bishops of Mosul no longer have Churches to shepherd.
“When we were in Erbil, we met with the Archbishop of Mosul, who along with his priests and all of the faithful of the archdiocese, have been driven out,” Archbishop Coakley told CNA in an Oct. 16 interview.
“He is, in effect, the archbishop of a Church that no longer exists.”
Archbishop Coakley continued, saying, “they've all been scattered. There are no more Christians in his archdiocese. That's a traumatic, but illustrative situation, of what's happening there, and what can happen, if things don't improve.”
Diocese bids three priests a fond farewell
The Diocese of Dodge City will soon be bidding a fond farewell to three extern priests, Fathers Dwight Birket, Enrique Estrada, and Cosmas Nwosuh, MSP, who will soon be heading back to their home dioceses or religious province.
Father Dwight Birket
“I came from the Diocese of Wichita on a three-year loan to the Diocese of Dodge City, but since no one volunteered to take my place, I stayed an extra year,” Father Birket said. “I have been here for four years.”