Page 1815 – Archdiocese of Baltimore

VATICAN CITY – Vatican and Israeli representatives said they finally have a concrete plan for reaching an agreement on financial and juridical issues related to Catholic institutions in Israel. “The talks took place in an atmosphere of great cordiality, mutual understanding and good will, and produced important progress and hope for yet further advances in the coming months,” said a joint statement issued after the representatives met May 21 at the Vatican. The meeting marked the first time in five years that the full membership of the bilateral permanent working commission met to discuss the issues related to church property, taxation and the legal rights of church institutions in Israel.

‘Great continental mission’ still elusive for bishops

APARECIDA, Brazil – More than halfway through a major meeting in which bishops from Latin America and the Caribbean are hammering out pastoral priorities, the “great continental mission” that several bishops predicted would emerge has not been a priority. “We haven’t discussed it, so we don’t know what it will be like or if it will be done. We haven’t addressed it yet,” said Archbishop Joao Braz de Aviz of Brasilia, Brazil. Instead, as the bishops met in small groups or subcommissions on different topics May 22 and 23, several issues discussed since the meeting began May 13 were missing from the outline on which their discussions were based. The outline, which will also serve as a framework for a document that will guide pastoral work in the region for the next 10 to 15 years, contains 16 topics grouped under seven major themes.

Pope supports Italian bishops’ promotion of pro-family policies

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI gave his full support to the Italian bishops’ efforts to promote public policies aimed at helping the traditional family. Addressing the annual meeting of the Italian bishops’ conference May 24, Pope Benedict said the bishops’ pro-family initiatives were “in full agreement with the constant teaching of the Apostolic See.” The bishops have been criticized by some for “interfering” in Italian politics, and the president of the bishops’ conference, Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, has been given a police escort after receiving death threats. Pope Benedict told the bishops that while the church respects the separation of church and state “we cannot help concerning ourselves with that which is good” for the person, created in the image of God, and for society.

Second collection to fund Black and Native American Missions

When the second collection basket is passed to parishioners around the Archdiocese of Baltimore June 2 and 3, their donations will be given to evangelization programs nationwide in the black, Native American, Eskimo and Aleut communities. The Black and Native American Missions collection has been conducted throughout the United States since 1884, with proceeds distributed as grants to dioceses supporting and strengthening evangelization programs that would otherwise be in danger of disappearing, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The idea is to bring existing Catholics in those groups back to the faith and to encourage others to examine the dogma and consider converting to Catholicism, said Therese Wilson Favors, director of the office of African American Ministries for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Wakeboarding makes a splash on waterways

Always eager to engage in a new sporting activity, 36-year-old Coleman Devlin quenched his thirst for adventure when he dove into wakeboarding 10 years ago. “The versatility of what you can do wakeboarding is 100 times what you can do on skiis,” said the financial advisor for Ryan Beck & Co, who attends St. Mary Star of the Sea in Federal Hill. “You can go backwards. You can go forwards. You can do a 180 air. You can jump across the lake, you can flip.” A water sport which involves a rider being towed on a single board behind a boat, wakeboarding is a combination of water skiing, snow boarding and surfing techniques. A wakeboarder typically travels an average of 20 mph and rides the wake of a speed boat.

Pastor of “polka capital of Maryland” to retire

Monsignor Richard E. Parks was a sixth grader at the old St. Paul School in East Baltimore when a Franciscan sister asked him if he ever thought about becoming a priest. As an altar boy who served daily Mass at St. Paul, the young student had been a constant presence at his parish – helping wherever he could with church and school activities. He even visited sick and shut-in parishioners for his pastor, letting them know when a priest would be stopping by to give them Holy Communion. “When that nun said that to me, the idea stuck in my mind,” remembered Monsignor Parks, pastor of Sacred Heart of Mary in Graceland Park since 1982. “I was always hanging around the rectory. I got to know good priests. They had such dedication to their parishioners.” Forty eight years after Archbishop Francis Keough ordained him to the priesthood, Monsignor Parks is preparing to retire July 1. A farewell liturgy will be celebrated at noon on July 8 at Sacred Heart of Mary, with a reception to follow.

Eastern Shore parishes welcome vacationing Catholics

Summer in Maryland means long drives to the Eastern Shore with the sunroof open and the windows down. Thousands of Marylanders migrate to the beach every summer for vacation, but what kind of effect do they have on the Eastern Shore parishes? According to Bishop Michael Saltarelli, who has been bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., for almost 12 years, there has been an increase of parishioners from the Archdiocese of Baltimore and surrounding states to the Eastern Shore. The increase in beachgoers means packed churches and added Masses for many of the parishes in Ocean City, Bethany Beach and Rehoboth Beach. “When they talk about the faith being lost, you can’t tell it by the Catholics that come to the Eastern Shore,” said Bishop Saltarelli. “They are a wonderful inspiration to me and our priests.” In order to accommodate all of the vacationing Catholics, parishes in the southern and northern parts of the Eastern Shore bring in more priests to help with the added weekend Masses. In fact, one parish and its mission parish have 18 Masses during the weekends in the summer, said the bishop.

Proud 74-year-old college graduate wants to set example

Northwood resident Barbara Williams discovered it was possible for a 74-year-old black woman to become a college graduate when she received her bachelor’s degree May 20, and now she wants to inform the youth of her race the only obstacle in their way of educational achievement is complacency. Armed with a hard-earned diploma from Morgan State University, the St. Francis Xavier, Baltimore, parishioner wants an opportunity to speak with black students in the Baltimore public and Catholic schools to urge them to take advantage of educational opportunities and not to squander their prospects.

Marquette University receives $51 million

MILWAUKEE – Marquette University is receiving $51 million from an alumni couple to help build a new law school facility. A university news release described it as “the largest gift ever made by individuals to a Wisconsin college or university” as well as one of the largest gifts ever given to any U.S. law school. Raymond A. and Kathryn A. Eckstein of Cassville, Wis., and Boca Raton, Fla., said they made the gift as an “expression of gratitude” to the university. Raymond Eckstein, a retired transportation entrepreneur, is a 1949 graduate of the law school. His wife received her bachelor’s degree in speech from Marquette that year.

Years after Pope John Paul II visits N.Y., his plays do likewise

NEW YORK – Playwrights Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter needn’t worry about their names being usurped in posterity’s annals by Karol Wojtyla, the archbishop of Krakow, Poland, who became Pope John Paul II. But there is much to admire in the late pope’s drama, “The Jeweler’s Shop,” currently on view in New York, courtesy of the Storm Theatre, the first in an ambitious and praiseworthy series of all his major works. The 1960 play is probably the best-known title (if any can truly be considered well-known) of the former actor’s theatrical work. There was a movie with Burt Lancaster and Olivia Hussey in 1988. On stage, in Boleslaw Taborski’s translation of the original Polish, the definition of “play” is stretched to the limit. The playwright himself slyly subtitled it “A Meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony, Passing on Occasion Into a Drama” when it was first published, as if to acknowledge the lack of dramatic incident. Still, it’s a fascinating piece.

Italian bishops insist on air time to rebut BBC program

VATICAN CITY – Church officials must have an opportunity to comment on-air if Italy’s state-run television airs a British documentary about the priest sex abuse crisis, said an Italian bishops’ conference official. “We do not want any censorship,” Bishop Giuseppe Betori, general secretary of the Italian bishops’ conference, told reporters May 22 in the midst of a very public debate over whether RAI, the state-run television network, should broadcast “Sex Crimes and the Vatican,” a 2006 documentary of the British Broadcasting Corp.

Fellowship is crucial