Several priests of the Pittsburgh diocese have met with Bishop David Zubik -- the prelate who said in January that the Obama administration's mandate regarding coverage of contraceptives in health care plans told Catholics, "To Hell with you" -- telling him his stance on the issue was alienating women and creating "a lot of anger" among laypeople.
NEWARK, N.J. -- For almost a century, the stained glass portrait of St. Patrick looked down on parishioners -- as if from the heavens -- from the massive nave of Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
But the Irish saint, as well as stained-glass depictions of St. Anna, St. Cecelia, Moses and Isaiah, were recently brought down to earth and will now watch over visitors at a new home 30 miles away, the Maryrest Chapel Mausoleum in Mahwah.
WASHINGTON -- In an unusual study whose main results were released at a Catholic University of America conference in Washington Thursday, Villanova University in Philadelphia asked former Catholics in the Trenton, N.J., diocese why they left the church.
While the results themselves were not surprising, the researchers said, the study suggests new ways the church can approach Catholics who are dissatisfied with what the church teaches or how it acts -- including those so dissatisfied that they have decided to leave.
One of their key recommendations was for pastors, bishops and other church officials to respond consistently to questioning or angry Catholics with constructive dialogue rather than a simple reiteration of church rules or policies.
CLEVELAND -- Before a recent prayer service in a shuttered Catholic church in Holyoke, Mass., parishioner Victor Anop stood before 120 people and made an urgent announcement:
"The Vatican has ordered the bishop of Cleveland to reopen 13 closed churches."
"Everybody broke into applause," Anop said in a telephone interview. "People are still talking about it. What happened in Cleveland brings us hope."
Parishioners of a Polish Catholic church in St. Louis are celebrating after a judge ruled last week that Archbishop Robert Carlson and the St. Louis archdiocese have no right to claim control of their parish and its property because of a unique 19th century legal contract.
A week after news broke about their content, the decrees from the Vatican's Congregation of the Clergy regarding appeals by 13 shuttered Cleveland parishes have arrived at the diocese and Bishop Richard G. Lennon has received them.
In a brief statement released Wednesday through the diocesan website, Lennon acknowledged receiving the decrees from the congregation and said he will now begin reviewing their rulings with his advisers.
Lennon has 60 days to determine if he wishes to appeal the congregation's decision to overrule his closing of 13 churches and suppressing their parishes. The appeal process would go through the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's Supreme Court.
Regardless of what Lennon decides to do, those sided with the parishes want Lennon to reopen their churches immediately, in accordance with the decrees.
"[An appeal is] within his right," said Peter Borre, an adviser to the parishes. "However, the status quo now canonically is that these 13 things are Catholic parishes, and the 13 padlocked buildings are parochial churches with full standing.
BALTIMORE -- On the first day of a new Mid-Atlantic Congress for Pastoral Leadership, Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., urged the gathering of religious education coordinators and others to support one another and be hopeful even when the going gets tough.
"Hope is the necessary breath of our ministry," he said.
PHILADELPHIA -- Anita Guzzardi, former chief financial officer of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, turned herself into Philadelphia police March 13 after she was charged with theft, forgery and unlawful use of a computer.
Guzzardi, 43, is believed to have embezzled more than $900,000 from the archdiocese's general operating fund to pay her own gambling debts and credit card bills before she was fired in July 2011.
In a March 13 statement, the archdiocese said insurance had covered the loss of the embezzled funds and part of the costs of an internal investigation.
"Donations to the 'Heritage of Faith -- Vision of Hope' capital campaign and the annual Catholic Charities Appeal were not impacted," the statement said. "The theft had no effect on the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission or the decision to close or regionalize any school."
The district attorney's office said Guzzardi had returned $150,000 to the archdiocese.
In a Feb. 3 column in The Catholic Standard & Times, the archdiocesan newspaper, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said, "People are angry about this loss, and they're right. So am I."
Joyful in their victory, parishioners of 13 Cleveland parishes who successfully appealed to the Vatican a diocesan decision to disband their communities and shutter their church doors now await the response of their bishop, the Most Rev. Richard G. Lennon.
As they wait, it’s unclear what sticking power Rome’s decision to reopen their parishes will have. Those close to the parishes view the decrees from the Vatican’s Congregation of the Clergy as a landmark decision, while others see it as a still murky scene where a possible appeal by Lennon could succeed.
Described as a good listener and firm administrator by those who have worked with him at the parish level, Fr. Liam S. Cary will carry with him a track record of pro-life activism as well as Hispanic community outreach when he becomes the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Baker in Oregon.
Cary's appointment by Pope Benedict XVI was announced Thursday in Washington, D.C., by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó, apostolic nuncio to the United States.
The 64-year-old priest succeeds Bishop Robert Vasa, who was named coadjutor bishop of Santa Rosa, Calif., in January 2011 and took over leadership of that diocese last June from now-retired Bishop Daniel Walsh.
While born in Portland, Ore., and ordained for the Portland Archdiocese in 1992 by then-Archbishop William Leveda, the bishop-designate grew up in the Baker Diocese in the central Oregon town of Prineville.
During the 13-month interim since Vasa's departure, Bishop William Skylstad, the retired bishop of Spokane and former U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops president, served as apostolic administrator of the Baker Diocese, which is headquartered in Bend.
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