PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) – Phu Nguyen, a University of Portland sophomore, is descended from a saint. Phu’s great-great-great-grandfather died for abiding by his faith. The Vatican considers the torture endured by the renowned Vietnamese martyrs among the worst in the history of Christianity. St. Matthew Nguyen Van Phuong was born in Vietnam in 1801. After his parents died, he was raised by the local priest in Quang-Binh, in the central part of the Southeast Asian nation.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (CNS) – A Harvard University student group’s plan to conduct a satanic ritual “black mass” May 12 on campus brought a public outcry, leading to its formal cancellation and an apparently impromptu off-campus version of the event, as well as a well-attended alternative Catholic holy hour. The planned event had drawn wide criticism from religious leaders as well as students, alumni and faculty at Harvard.
“Politicians won’t change the world, mothers on their knees will,” says Marta Pope, coordinator of the Mothers In Prayer group in Queens. Every Wednesday at 10 a.m., mothers from Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, Astoria, gather to pray for children around the world. They offer the prayers in union with mothers in 118 countries who say the prayers in 40 different languages.
For those who couldn’t quite manage a weekend sojourn to Rome for the recent canonizations of SS. John XXIII and John Paul II, St. Athanasius Church, Bensonhurst, hosted its own celebration.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will dedicate the church and altar of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, Prospect Heights, on Tuesday evening, May 13, at 7:30 p.m. The liturgy will be broadcast live on NET TV, the diocese’s 24-hour cable television channel.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Kathy DiFiore has spent more than half of her life as the “shelter lady,” taking vacant convents and other buildings in New Jersey and turning them into shelters for unwed pregnant women. The work of DiFiore, now 67, was made into a feature film, “Gimme Shelter.”
ROME (CNS) – Catholic politicians and judges who support laws in conflict with Church teaching on abortion, euthanasia, marriage and related issues commit “sacrilege” and cause “grave scandal” if they receive Communion, said the U.S. cardinal who heads the Vatican’s highest court.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – The Supreme Court ruled this week that prayers said before town council meetings in Greece, N.Y., do not violate the Constitution. In their 5-4 decision, the judges noted a historical precedent to opening local legislative meetings with a prayer were not coercive to those in attendance.
TRURO, Iowa (CNS) – People in and around the small town of Truro, southwest of Des Moines, still remember Joseph Hays as the farmer whose letter persuaded Pope John Paul II to come to Iowa during his, and any pope’s, first tour of the U.S. in 1979.
PITTSBURGH (CNS) – The new evangelization is not a new Gospel but refocuses the faithful on the good news of Jesus and involves the renewal of faith and the willingness to share it, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, D.C., told the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA).
