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The Southern Cross, Page 2
Pope names new bishop
for Baker, auxiliary
for Seattle
Washington (CNS)
P ope John Paul II has accepted the
resignation of 77-year-old Bishop
Thomas J. Connolly of Baker, Ore
gon, and appointed a priest of the
Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, as his
successor. The new bishop of Baker
is Monsignor Robert Francis Vasa,
48, currently vicar general and mod
erator of the curia for the Diocese of
Lincoln. The pope also named a
Seattle priest to be an auxiliary bish
op in that archdiocese. Named an
auxiliary bishop in Seattle was Father
George Thomas, 49, currently vicar
general of the Seattle Archdiocese.
Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, apos
tolic nuncio to the United States,
announced the appointments Novem
ber 19 in Washington.
Married clergy issue at
heart of Eastern-rite
BISHOPS’ MEETING
Washington (CNS)
T he issue of married clergy for
Eastern-rite churches in the West
that permit them in their homelands
became the focal point of discussion
during a November 15 meeting of
Eastern-rite Catholic bishops. The
issue for Eastern bishops, who came
together during the U.S. bishops’ fall
general meeting in a Washington
hotel, was a continuation of a discus
sion during a six-day Boston
encounter held earlier in November
of Eastern-rite bishops, clergy, reli
gious and lay leaders from the
Americas and Oceania. “Every bish
op brought it up” at the November 15
meeting, Auxiliary Bishop Nicholas
J. Samra of the Melkite Eparchy of
Newton, Mass., said in an interview.
Pope: experience of
Nazi atrocities made
HIM PRO-LIFE
Vatican City (CNS)
P ope John Paul II said his ardent
pro-life campaign, a trademark of
his pontificate, probably results from
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his experience of Nazi brutalities in
his Polish homeland. “Maybe God has
entrusted me the Chair of Peter at the
threshold of the third millennium to be
an impassioned ‘advocate of life’,” the
pope told German bishops at the
Vatican November 18. “In fact, since
my youth, I had to experience how,
during a particularly dark chapter in
the history of this tormented century,
human life was trampled and system
atically annihilated not very far from
my hometown of Wadowice,” he said.
Top U.S. Lutheran
BISHOP PRAISES ACCORD
Washington (CNS)
T he presiding bishop of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America hailed the Oct. 31 signing of
the Catholic-Lutheran joint declaration
on justification as “a testimony to the
distance we have come in my life
time.” Lutheran Bishop H. George
Anderson, in a November 17 address
to the U.S. Catholic bishops during
their fall general meeting in
Washington, said, “Just as I thought I
would never live to see the year 2000,
I never thought I would live to see
Lutherans and Catholics coming
together like this.” The joint declara
tion, called the Augsburg accord by
some, says that Lutherans and
Catholics have reached a consensus
on the subject of justification by God.
U.S. BISHOPS ENDORSE
BEATIFICATION OF
Archbishop Romero
Washington (CNS)
J oining other episcopal conferences
around the world, the U.S. bishops
gave their unanimous support
November 16 to the beatification
cause of Archbishop Oscar Romero of
San Salvador. Archbishop Theodore
E. McCarrick of Newark, N.J., chair
man of the bishops’ International
Policy Committee, had asked for the
bishops’ endorsement of the process
that could lead to Archbishop
Romero’s beatification and eventual
canonization. Archbishop Romero
was assassinated while celebrating
Mass in March 1980.
Vatican announces
PAPAL TRIP
to Holy Land
Vatican City (CNS)
P ope John Paul II will make a
long-awaited pilgrimage to the
Holy Land at the end of March,
Vatican officials announced. During a
November 17 press conference to
present a revised jubilee calendar of
events, officials also said the pope
would not personally bless pilgrims
each evening from his window over
Saint Peter’s Square, as previously
announced. A Synod of Bishops orig
inally scheduled for October has been
pulled from the calendar. “The Holy
Father, because of the pressing com
mitments of the upcoming jubilee,
has decided to postpone the celebra
tion of the 10th Ordinary General
Assembly of the Synod of Bishops
until the year 2001,” the Vatican said
November 20, adding that the exact
date had not yet been fixed.
Court takes case about
PRAYER AT HIGH SCHOOL
FOOTBALL GAMES
Washington (CNS)
T he U.S. Supreme Court Novem
ber 15 agreed to hear an appeal
in a Texas case that will decide
whether student-led prayer before
public school football games violates
the constitutional separation of
church and state. The case, Santa Fe
Independent School District vs. Doe,
involves a suburban Houston school
district and two families—one
Catholic and one Mormon—who in
1995 sued the school district over its
policies regarding prayer.
Cardinal misses bishops’
MEETING TO WORK ON
MATTER FOR HOLY SEE
New York (CNS)
C ardinal John J. O’Connor of New
York missed this year’s meeting
of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops to work on a spe
cial assignment from one of the
Vatican congregations he serves, and
not because of ill health, the cardi-
Thursday, November 25, 1999
nal’s spokesman told Catholic News
Service. Joseph Zwilling said
Cardinal O’Connor, who has been
recuperating from surgery to remove
a brain tumor and subsequent radia
tion treatments, had planned to attend
the November 15-18 Washington
meeting. He said the assignment
from the Vatican was a confidential
matter, and that Cardinal O’Connor
had said that it was unrelated to
choosing his successor.
Second parish denied
REGISTRATION UNDER
Russia’s religion law
Moscow (CNS)
A second Catholic parish in
Russia’s Volga region has been
refused registration under the coun
try’s 1997 religion law, the parish’s
administrator said. “They are telling
us that our parish charter does not
conform to Russian law,” said the
administrator, Franz Payanovsky, in a
telephone interview from Togliatti, an
industrial city of 870,000 on the
Volga River. Local Justice Ministry
officials rejected the parish’s applica
tion for the same reasons used in
denying the application of a parish in
Syzran, a smaller city in the same
region of Samara. In both cases, the
officials objected to a bishop having
the right to control parish property.
Italian prosecutors
REQUEST INDICTMENT OF
Naples cardinal
Rome (CNS)
I talian prosecutors officially
requested the indictment of
Cardinal Michele Giordano of Naples
for his alleged involvement in an ille
gal loan operation. The indictment
was sought November 18 following a
two-year investigation. If accepted by
magistrates, the cardinal could face
trial sometime next year on several
counts related to usury, criminal
association and illegal appropriation
of funds. Cardinal Giordano, who has
always maintained his innocence,
told reporters in Naples he was
“serene” about the request for indict
ment.
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