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Contents n The Sou ☆ Diocese of Savannah ☆ hem (Voss News 1-3 Commentary 4-5 Around the Diocese 6-7 Faith Alive! 8-9 Notices 10-11 Last But Not Least 12 Vol. 79, No. 41 $.50 PER ISSUE Thursday, November 25, 1999 <J w u Bishops end fall meeting with flurry of documents Washington (CNS) T he U.S. Catholic bishops ended their last general meeting of the millennium November 18 with the approval of a flurry of documents on topics as narrow as bishops’ pen sion benefits and as broad as the new millenni um itself. Also endorsed on the final day of the November 15-18 meeting were a 10,000-word pastoral message on charity and a statement extolling the “blessings of age” that asks parish es to make ministry to the elderly a priority. The bishops also discussed but did not vote on a proposed new document on church art and architecture in the United States. But the most contentious issue facing the bishops at their 1999 meeting was resolved November 17 with approval of U.S. norms implementing Pope John Paul II’s 1990 apos tolic exhortation on Catholic higher education, “£% Corde Ecclesiae." The vote was 223-31 to adopt one of the most widely debated and most often rewritten docu ments the bishops have handled since their pas toral letters on the economy and on war and peace in the 1980s. Though the college norms remain controver sial in the Catholic academic community, sup porters of the norms argued that they are need ed and have been sufficiently refined to deal with the most serious objections raised against earlier versions. Another major discussion at the meeting was (Continued on page 1 1) Right: Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston speaks to the U.S. bishops prior to their vote on new norms for Catholic higher education November 17 in Washington. Cardi nal Law, speaking in favor of the new U.S. norms, said they would bring about a "new moment" in Catholic higher education. Cathedral renovation continues, in and out Left: The scaffolding of the towers of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, Savannah, is now complete, enabling roofers to remove the old slates and replace them with new ones. Above: Scaffolding is being erected in the Cathedral's interior to enable refurbishing of the walls and ceilings once the new roof is finished.