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WASHINGTON (CNS) — “Welcoming Christ in the Migrant” is the theme of the U.S. Catholic Church’s National Migration Week Jan. 7-13. “I invite you to welcome Christ in the migrant through prayer, education and parish outreach,” said Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Migration. He said Jesus’ biblical admonition that what one does to a stranger is done to him “is particularly timely” in the current immigration debate.

Jesuit priest among Newsweek’s people to watch

NEW YORK (CNS) — Newsweek magazine has named Jesuit Father John P. Foley, president of the national Cristo Rey Network of Catholic high schools, among “the people to watch in the year ahead.” Two other religious figures — Episcopal Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Muslim professor Ingrid Mattson — also made the magazine’s gallery of 20 figures to keep an eye on in 2007 in various fields, from politics to sports, religion to entertainment, and education to business.

President Gerald R. Ford brought healing

br />WASHINGTON (CNS) — In his brief, unelected tenure in the nation’s highest office, President Gerald R. Ford restored integrity and character to the White House and brought a measure of healing to a country badly wounded and divided by the Watergate scandal. Ford, who had a bout with pneumonia last January and two heart treatments in August, died Dec. 26 at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 93.

Former actor takes on new role as volunteer

As an actor, Seamus Dockery played roles in television, film and on stage, including a bit part in “The Exorcist” and in AARP commercials. Before retiring, Mr. Dockery prepared students to appear on stage when he was an acting and directing professor at Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore. A new role he recently assumed isn’t in front of the camera or under hot stage lights, but behind the scenes as a volunteer mentor at Christopher Place Employment Academy, Baltimore. The academy has a residential component which supports addiction recovery and helps formerly homeless men become productive members of the community.

Bookstore owners earn spiritual currency

Dolores Orlando of Towson recently walked into the Catholic Corner Bookstore determined to find specific Christmas cards and a statue of St. Joseph, and looked relieved when she spotted the establishment’s owner, Joan Linz. “Joan, I really need your help,” said Ms. Orlando, an Immaculate Conception, Towson, parishioner. The bookshop keeper, a parishioner of St. Ursula in Parkville, assured her longtime customer a shipment of Christmas cards would be arriving later that evening and helped her select a St. Joseph statue for a friend. This is the kind of help on which 50-year-old Ms. Linz thrives, and it is part of her store’s mission to provide fellow Catholics with the tools to become closer to God.

Christmas still brings joy

JERUSALEM (CNS) — Once again Christmas in the Holy Land is faced with “circumstances of death and frustration,” but the holiday still brings joy and announces salvation to all, said Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem in his traditional Christmas message. Though the West Bank city of Bethlehem should be a city of peace it is a place of “conflict and death,” Patriarch Sabbah said. Peace could be reached if those responsible were “sincerely determined,” he said.

2007 promises a world of busyness for Pope

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A new Vatican calendar features photos of Pope Benedict XVI relaxing, but the pope’s own agenda for 2007 leaves little time for repose. The Vatican will be a busy place throughout the year, with hundreds of papal meetings, liturgies and other events already scheduled and several documents in the pipeline. The pope will make at least two foreign trips, including his first intercontinental journey, and sometime during the year is likely to name another batch of new cardinals.

Tradition gives way to vigil

ST. LOUIS (CNS) — Midnight Mass used to be one of the mainstays of a Catholic Christmas. But in recent years the tradition once celebrated at virtually every parish has given way to Masses at 11 p.m., 10 p.m. or even earlier. “The midnight Mass is a tradition that goes back to the 11th century,” said Father William McCumber, director of the St. Louis archdiocesan Office of Worship.

Argentine authorities to encase Virgin of Lujan

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNS) — Church authorities in Argentina are preparing to encase the country’s most revered icon — a 17th-century terra-cotta statue of the Virgin of Lujan, patron saint of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay — in bulletproof glass to safeguard it from vandalism.

Part-time Christmas tree business becomes tradition

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (CNS) — The question made Duane Olberding laugh: Are you as jolly as Old St. Nick? “I don’t know about being as jolly as Old St. Nick, but I do enjoy helping people get a nice Christmas tree,” said Olberding, a member of St. Joseph Parish in Leavenworth. Olberding, who recently retired as a guidance counselor at Immaculata High School in Leavenworth, has played a key role in making Christmas merry for Leavenworth families since 1984.

New Warsaw prelate a spy?

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican and the Polish bishops are convinced Warsaw’s new Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus was not a spy for the secret police under Poland’s former communist regime, the Vatican said. “In deciding to nominate the new metropolitan archbishop of Warsaw, the Holy See took into consideration all the circumstances of his life, including those regarding his past,” said a statement issued Dec. 21 by the Vatican press office.

Settlement for Portland sex abuse claims