People

New leader for men's orders sketches hopes and fears

Capuchin Fr. John Pavlik was appointed on June 7 as the new executive director of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, which brings together leaders of more than 200 men’s religious orders in the United States. A native of Western Pennsylvania whose background is in formation and provincial leadership, Pavlik probably didn’t need convincing that his new gig is likely to be complicated -- but proof came anyway, in spades, just six days later.
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Jesus would laugh at a lot, says Colbert's 'chaplain'

By Josef Kuhn, Religion News Service
WASHINGTON -- Three priests -- a Dominican, a Franciscan and a Jesuit -- walk into a bar. According to the Rev. James Martin, it's not only the opening to a good joke, but quite possibly the saving grace of religion. Martin's new book, "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life," says religious people would be a lot happier -- and holier -- if they lightened up and took themselves a little less seriously. "Joy, as a number of spiritual writers have said, is the surest sign of the Holy Spirit," the Jesuit priest said at a recent gig at Georgetown University. But, he continued, "there are certain Roman Catholics who seem to think that being religious means being deadly serious all the time." Martin, culture editor of the Jesuit magazine America and the unofficial chaplain to Comedy Central's "Colbert Report," is, well, wickedly funny.
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India provides perspective and grace

Away and back again
I spent most of August traveling through northern India with my youngest son, my brother and his family, the trip made possible by a donation from a generous friend who, like me, is an Indiaphile. My father, a cultural affairs officer with the United States Information Agency, was first assigned to India in 1962 and my family lived there for a total of seven years, in the absurdly privileged existence then available to American diplomats. I have returned three times since and remain addicted to the place of my early childhood.
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Active, inactive priests reconnect

Re-bonding comes naturally in order's AMICI group
Many priests who’ve left their active ministries -- some to marry, others to find new professions -- have carried pain within them, often for many years. For some, it has involved guilt; for others, sadness in the face of rejection by the official church. In some cases, the misuse of a simple adjective can add to the hurt, for the person -- or wider church community.
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Campus ministers help graduates transition into the 'real world'

May. 24, 2012
By Porsia Tunzi
Dominican Sr. Jodi Cecilia Min

Graduating college students shouldn't feel like they're being jettisoned into the "real world," as if the life they have been living is some kind of "unreal world," say campus ministers counseling students during this perennial time of transition.

"Don't discount the past years as unreal," Jesuit Fr. Jack Treacy tells graduating students at Santa Clara University in California, where he is director of campus ministry.

Editorial: Catholics face an arduous evolution on marriage

May. 23, 2012
By An NCR Editorial

The opening sentence on our news story about President Barack Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage is: “Americans’ position on same-sex marriage is like their president’s: It’s evolving.” This is especially true for Catholic Americans, and indicators so far suggest it won’t be a smooth evolution.

Shortly after Obama’s announcement, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the president’s comments “are deeply saddening.”

U.S. views on marriage evolving, polls show

May. 23, 2012
By NCR Staff and Wire Services
President Barack Obama speaks to Robin Roberts of ABC’s “Good Morning America” at the White House May 9. During the interview Obama said he believes same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. (CNS/Reuters/Courtesy of the White House/Pete Souza)

Americans’ position on same-sex marriage is like their president’s: It’s evolving.

Back in 2010, President Barack Obama said his views on same-sex marriage were “evolving” and that he “struggles with this,” adding he would continue thinking about the issue. In a May 9 interview this year with ABC News, Obama said that, after several years of deliberation, he thought same-sex couples “should be able to get married.”

Georgetown alum, 'Exorcist' author: University should stop calling itself Catholic

May. 21, 2012
By Daniel Burke, Religion News Service

The author who turned Georgetown University into a horror scene in "The Exorcist" plans to sue the school in church court, charging that his alma mater has strayed so far from church doctrine that it should no longer call itself Catholic.

William Peter Blatty, who graduated from Georgetown in 1950, says the "last straw" was the university's speaking invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Sebelius, who addressed graduating public policy students on Friday, has been criticized by conservative Catholics for approving a mandate that requires many religious institutions to cover employees' birth control costs. The Archdiocese of Washington called the Sebelius invitation "shocking."

Blatty, 85, credits a Georgetown scholarship with fostering his writing career, which includes an Academy Award for "The Exorcist," a blockbuster based on his best-selling 1971 novel. In the book and movie, a Jesuit priest at Georgetown, the nation's oldest Catholic university, struggles to save a demon-possessed girl. Now retired, Blatty lives in Bethesda, Md.

Franciscan University drops student health insurance plan

May. 18, 2012
By Carol Zimmermann, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON -- Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, is discontinuing its student health insurance plan in the upcoming school year in opposition to the Obama administration's mandate requiring most religious employers, including colleges, to provide no-cost contraceptive and sterilization coverage in its health insurance plans.

The school made the announcement to its students in mid-April and the news became public one month later when the university posted its campus health insurance policy on its website.

Media outlets announced that the university was the first Catholic college to drop students from its health insurance plan because of the contraception mandate required by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Michael Hernon, vice president of advancement, said university officials had not expected their decision to receive national media coverage.

When university students, alumni and benefactors were initially told of the change, he said, the reaction was "overwhelmingly supportive."

Bishop who resigned because of sex abuse dies

May. 11, 2012
By NCR Staff and Catholic News Service

Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell, whose admission of inappropriate conduct with high school seminarians decades ago led to his resignation as head of the Palm Beach, Fla., diocese in 2002, died May 4 at Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, S.C.

The Irish-born bishop had lived under supervision at the abbey since his resignation. His funeral Mass was May 7, also at the abbey.

O'Connell died after a long illness, less than a week before his 74th birthday.

North Carolina voters approve amendment upholding traditional marriage

May. 09, 2012
By Patricia L. Guilfoyle, Catholic News Service

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- With a heavy turnout at the polls, North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman by a 3-to-2 margin.

In unofficial results calculated late May 8 by the North Carolina State Board of Elections, 1,303,952 people -- 61.05 percent -- voted for the amendment while 831,788 people -- 38.95 percent -- voted against it.

The amendment read, "Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state." It enshrines the definition of traditional marriage in the state constitution, elevating it from what has been state law since 1996.

Bishop Peter J. Jugis of Charlotte and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh, who were at the Vatican May 8 for their "ad limina" visits, had both championed the amendment, which they said would prevent any arbitrary redefinition of marriage.

Vatican newspaper says Nazi eugenics 'still alive'

May. 07, 2012
By Alessandro Speciale, Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY -- Proponents of euthanasia and aborting chronically ill fetuses use the same arguments that were once used by the Nazis to promote their eugenics program of mass extermination, according to the Vatican's semiofficial newspaper.

The article appears on the front page of Saturday's issue of L'Osservatore Romano and is signed by Lucetta Scaraffia, an Italian historian who is a frequent contributor to the Vatican paper.

Scaraffia's article comes in the wake of the Italian translation of a 1920 book by two German scholars, Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, that set the ideological foundations for the Nazi program of extermination of disabled and incurably sick people.

The authors of the 1920 book (Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living) proposed that the lives of the chronically ill or of the mentally and physically disabled were "unworthy of being lived" and should be given a "charitable death."

Scaraffia argues this mentality can still be seen in the "writings of many contemporary bioethicists, and of many politicians who support legislative proposals of a euthanasic type."

New York museum exhibit features ordinary people of extraordinary vision

Exhibit captures the religious, cultural and political expressions of self-taught and folk artists

May. 04, 2012
By Leo J. O'Donovan
Ejlat Feuer, “Cataño, East 110th Street, East Harlem, Manhattan,” 1966 (Photos courtesy of El Museo del Barrio)

Nowhere in New York these days is there punchier, closer-to-earth religious art than at El Museo del Barrio on upper Fifth Avenue. The exhibition there, “Testimonios: 100 Years of Popular Expression,” has lots more than religious material. Its point is to show how largely self-taught or folk artists have imagined their world, and its more than 300 pieces trace the interplay of family life, cultural heritage, community relations, dislocation, oppression and liberation.

Dialogue between Catholic leaders, Girl Scouts addresses criticisms

May. 04, 2012
By Christie L. Chicoine, Catholic News Service
A Girl Scout cadet adjusts her sash during an awards ceremony at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis this year. (CNS/St. Louis Review/Lisa Johnston)

PHILADELPHIA -- Tina Kent credits the Girl Scouts for teaching her skills in leadership, conflict resolution and critical thinking and for giving her an appreciation for the outdoors and opportunities to travel.

Kent became a Brownie at age 8 in her native Vermillion, S.D., and remained a Scout until she was a teenager in Waco, Texas.

Now a wife and mother of five, Kent lives in the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pa., and is a Girl Scout troop leader in York, Pa., where her troop meets at St. Joseph Catholic School.