Faith & Parish

In a building swap, the Crystal Cathedral has announced it will move its congregation to a smaller Roman Catholic church after the iconic Protestant megachurch was sold to the Catholic Diocese of Orange, Calif.

The cathedral, plagued by huge debt and squabbles among family members of founder Robert H. Schuller, will move to a space with less than half of its current seating capacity. Sheila Schuller Coleman, Schuller's daughter and the recent pastor at the cathedral, started a new church nearby in March.

Last fall, a bankruptcy judge approved the diocese's $57.5 million purchase of the glass-walled building in Garden Grove. The cathedral's congregation is exercising an option in the sales agreement that permits it to move to St. Callistus Catholic Church in June 2013.

The Catholic congregation at St. Callistus, and later, the administrative offices of the diocese, will move to the Crystal Cathedral site.

The Cathedral congregation will pay $25,000 in monthly rent for two years starting January 2014, with the cost escalating in a predetermined formula after that. The cathedral said the length of the lease agreement has not been determined.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- The head of Catholic Relief Services urged an audience of lay ministers to work with one another and develop a sense of community.

And one key to building that community is charisma, said Carolyn Woo, CEO of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency.

"Charisma is the ability to take people as you find them, like them for what they are, and do not dislike them for what they are not," she told attendees at the annual conference of the National Association for Lay Ministry.

The meeting, which featured prayer, speakers and informational booths, was held in the Crystal City area of Arlington May 31-June 2.

Woo urged empathy and a capacity for others. "This capacity for others is grace," she said, emphasizing that the word "grace" should be spelled with a capital "G" -- "because grace is what God gave us."

Grace, she continued, is the key to having the empathy that keeps lay ministers from competing with one another and instead builds a community of lay ministers.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Citing its need to restructure in the United States after a series of sex abuse scandals involving its founder and several prominent members, the Legionaries of Christ are withdrawing from the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe here, effective July 1. The order has administered the large Hispanic parish in the state capital for the last 12 years.

Their departure follows the closure last year of their two local schools, the University of Sacramento and the Immaculate Conception Apostolic School, because of diminishing enrollment.

"Our religious congregation has suffered a crisis in the past few years and we must restructure ourselves in the United States," said Fr. Lino Otero, pastor, in a message to parishioners. "In these difficult moments, we have enjoyed the support and trust of Pope Benedict XVI, who accompanies us in these times. We view our future with hope and enthusiasm, forming a more solid congregation of religious and priests."

WASHINGTON -- Student debt might be forcing many Catholic U.S. college graduates considering religious life to postpone or even forego testing their vocation, a new study reports.

"In essence, they're too poor to take the vow of poverty," commented the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which conducted the study.