• Home
  • About Us
  • Support
  • Concerts & Events
  • Music & Media
  • Faith
  • Listen Live
  • Give Now

Catholic News 2

II Kgs 5:14-17; II Tm 2:8-13; Lk 17:11-19 In a little Church, there were the father and mother of a young man killed in a military battle. One day, they came to the pastor and told him they wanted to give a monetary gift as a memorial to their son who died in battle. The pastor said, "That's a wonderful gesture on your part." He asked if it was okay to tell the congregation, and they said that it was. The next Sunday he told the congregation of the gift given in memory of the dead son. On the way home from Church, another couple was driving down the highway when the father said to his wife, "Why don't we give a gift because of our son?" And his wife said, "But our son didn't die in any conflict! Our son is still alive!" Her husband replied, "That's exactly my point! That's all the more reason we ought to give in thanks to God." We too often build fences around forgiveness, faith, duty, and gratitude. In passages like...

II Kgs 5:14-17; II Tm 2:8-13; Lk 17:11-19 

In a little Church, there were the father and mother of a young man killed in a military battle. One day, they came to the pastor and told him they wanted to give a monetary gift as a memorial to their son who died in battle. The pastor said, "That's a wonderful gesture on your part." He asked if it was okay to tell the congregation, and they said that it was. The next Sunday he told the congregation of the gift given in memory of the dead son. On the way home from Church, another couple was driving down the highway when the father said to his wife, "Why don't we give a gift because of our son?" And his wife said, "But our son didn't die in any conflict! Our son is still alive!" Her husband replied, "That's exactly my point! That's all the more reason we ought to give in thanks to God." We too often build fences around forgiveness, faith, duty, and gratitude. In passages like this one, Jesus encourages us to remove those fences in order to achieve the possibilities of the Christian life.

Introduction: The central theme of today’s readings is gratitude - in particular, the expression of gratitude God expects from us. By describing Jesus' miraculous healing of the ten lepers from a physically devastating and socially isolating disease, today’s Gospel presents a God Who desires gratitude from us for the many blessings we receive from Him, and Who feels pain at our ingratitude.  Naaman, the Syrian Military General in the first reading, was an outcast not only because of his illness; he was also a non-Israelite. But he returned to thank the Prophet Elisha for the cure of his leprosy, and as a sign of his gratitude transferred his allegiance to the God of Israel. St. Paul, in the second reading, advises Timothy to be grateful to God even in his physical sufferings and amid the dangers associated with spreading the Word of God, because God will always be faithful to His people. Today’s Gospel story tells us of a single non-Jewish leper (a “Samaritan heretic”), who returned to thank Jesus for healing him, while the nine other lepers went their way, perhaps under the false impression that healing was their right as God’s chosen people.  They did not seem to feel indebted to Jesus or to God for the singular favor they had received.  Instead, they hurried off to obtain a health certificate from the priests.  “Where are the other nine?” Jesus asked the Samaritan leper and the crowd.  “Did only one come back to say 'thank you?'” Today’s readings also remind us that Faith and healing go hand in hand, as do Faith and reconciliation. It was Faith that prompted Naaman to plunge himself into the waters of the Jordan River, and it was Faith in Jesus which prompted the lepers to present themselves first to Jesus and then to the priests. Finally, the readings demonstrate God's love for all peoples, including the Samaritans (whom the Israelites hated), and the pagans, Israel's enemies whom Naaman represented.

First reading, 2 Kings 5:14-17: describes a vivid expression of thanksgiving (hodah) made by the pagan Naaman, the army commander of the King of Aram, (in present-day Syria; its capital was Damascus), at his healing from leprosy through the power of Yahweh.  When the prophet Elisha refused to accept Naaman’s costly gifts as reward for the healing, the grateful Naaman asked the prophet’s permission to take two mule-loads of earth with him from Yahweh’s land of Israel, so that when he got back to Damascus, he could place an altar for Yahweh on the soil, and so pray to Yahweh on the soil of Israel. Most people at that time had a crude, physical and territorial notion of Divinity. It was just understood that one god governed the land of Aram, and another god held sway over the territory of Israel, and so on. If you wanted to worship the God of Israel in another country, you had to take some of Israel's soil with you, dump it on the ground in the other country and stand on it. That way, you would "be in Israel," and so could worship Israel's God.  The grateful Naaman promised that he would accept Yahweh as his only God and offer holocausts to Him in thanksgiving for the healing. 

 Second Reading, 2 Timothy 2:8-13: In the Church at Ephesus, Timothy held an office that would evolve into that of a Bishop. Paul, a senior Apostle now in prison, loved his young, one-time missionary companion and friend of long standing. Today's passage is part of Paul's encouragement to Timothy. Paul tells Timothy that he willingly accepts his suffering --"even to the point of chains, like a criminal” –  as a grateful Apostle of Jesus, "for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory"(vv 9, 10). Part of the Christian life-experience includes the physical sufferings and dangers associated with spreading the Word of God [1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:8-11].  Paul reminds us that, “even if we are unfaithful, God will remain faithful;” and, hence, we must be grateful to God, even in our sufferings.  “I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.”(Rom 1:8)

Exegesis:  Leprosy as God’s punishment: Jesus was on the border between Galilee and Samaria where He was met by a band of ten lepers, including both Jews and Samaritans who were drawn together by their common misery and who ignored their traditional enmity.   Biblical leprosy rarely included Hansen’s disease (leprosy proper). It was mostly skin diseases like ringworm, psoriasis, leukoderma, and vitiligo. The suffering of lepers in Biblical times was chiefly due to the way they were treated by the religious society of the day (Interpreter’s Bible).  They were deemed unclean, unfit to be counted among a people who considered themselves “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Ex 19:6).  “Leprosy” was a terrible disease because its victims were separated from their families and society.  Lepers were treated as sinners who were being punished by God with a contagious disease.  The punishment given to Miriam (the complaining sister of Moses in Numbers 12:9-10), to Gehazi (the greedy servant of the prophet Elisha: “The leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever"-II Kings 5: 27) and to King Uzziah (for burning incense in the Temple, a right reserved for priests, Chronicles 26:19), supported this belief that leprosy was God’s punishment for sins.

Mosaic restrictions on lepers: The Mosaic Law, as given in Leviticus 13: 44-46, demands that a) the priest shall declare the leper unclean, b) the leper  shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, c) he shall muffle his beard and  he shall cry out, 'Unclean, unclean,'  and d) he shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.  The Book of Numbers (5:2-3) commands the Israelites "to put out of the camp everyone who is leprous."  Over 3000 words in Leviticus (chapters 13-14), govern the inspection of suspected lepers, their isolation, and the procedure for declaring the healed leper clean.  As a general rule, when a leper was healed, he had to go to the local priest to confirm that he was now clean and was permitted to mix with the general public.

The parallels: The Fathers of the Church note three parallels between the Gospel story and the story of Naaman, the Gentile who was also healed of leprosy.  First, both Naaman and the Samaritan leper were foreigners who sought healing from a Godly Jew. Second, both were ordered to perform a small, seemingly irrelevant action.  Elisha told Naaman to bathe in the river Jordan seven times.  Jesus told the ten lepers to show themselves to the priest who could certify a healing.  In both stories, healing took place only after they left His presence to obey. Third, both Naaman and the Samaritan returned to praise God. 

 The Samaritan hero: A Samaritan is presented as the model of faith and gratitude.  Luke was himself a Gentile, a foreigner and so he delights in recounting stories of foreigners whom God has blessed.  A Samaritan is the hero of this episode.   The thanks and praise of the Samaritan was a natural response to the free and undeserved mercy of God.  The Samaritan knew that he was in the right place at the right time, and such an opportunity might never occur again for him. The Samaritan had not earned the kindness of God.  He simply asked for it--and it was freely given.  He knew he couldn't earn it; he was an outcast, a Samaritan.  Having accepted God's grace, thanks and praise was his natural response. Both the author of 2 Kings and the Evangelist Luke wanted to make an important theological point about outsiders. No story in all the Gospels so poignantly shows man's ingratitude.  The lepers came to Jesus with desperate longing, and the merciful Lord cured them.  But nine of them never came back to give thanks.

Ingratitude and gratitude:  In both the Old Testament and the New Testaments, God laments over man’s ingratitude.  “Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth, for the LORD speaks: Sons have I raised and reared, but they have disowned me!  An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master's manger; But Israel does not know, My people have not understood. Ah! Sinful nation, people laden with wickedness, evil race, corrupt children!  They have forsaken the LORD, spurned the Holy One of Israel and apostatized” (Isaiah; 1: 2-4).  “He came to what was his own, but his own people 7 did not accept him” (John 1:11).  Hence, the Word of God invites us to be thankful.  At the tomb of Lazarus Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you for hearing me” (John 11:41).  St. Paul advises us: “Give thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (Ephesians 5: 20). “And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3: 17).  Psalms 107:1 advises us: "Give thanks to the LORD Who is good, Whose love endures forever!" The medieval Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, suggests that if the only prayer we say in our lifetime is "Thank-You," that would suffice.

Life Messages: 1) We need to learn to be thankful to God and to others. Often we are ungrateful to God.  Although we receive so much from Him, we often take it for granted, without appreciating His gifts.  We allow the negatives of our lives to hide from ourselves the blessings we have received -- minor negatives like some health problems, financial worries, conflict with a neighbor or co-worker or spouse.    Besides, we are often thankful only when we compare ourselves with less fortunate people.  In times of need, we pray with desperate intensity; but as time passes we forget God.  Many of us fail to offer a grace before meals or allot a few minutes of the day for family prayer.  God gave us his only Son, but we seldom give Him a word of thanks.  Often we are ungrateful to our parents and consider them a nuisance, although in the past we were dependent on them for literally everything.  Similarly, we owe a great debt of gratitude to our friends, teachers, doctors, pastors--but we often fail to thank them.  Hence, in the future, let us be filled with daily thanksgiving to God and to others for the countless gifts we have received.  Let us show our gratitude to our forgiving God by forgiving others, and to a loving God by radiating His love, mercy and compassion to others.

2) We need to celebrate the Holy Eucharist as the supreme act of thanksgiving:  The Greek word “Eucharist” means profoundly religious and thoroughly spiritual “thanksgiving.”  Thanksgiving is the attitude we should adopt in worship.  When we celebrate Holy Mass together, we are thanking God for the great gift of His Son whose sacrifice formed us into the People of God.  We thank God for the gift of the Spirit, through Whom we bring the presence of the Lord to others.  Saying thanks to God together with the parish community, sharing our time, talents and material blessings in the parish and sharing the Heavenly Bread of Thanksgiving, the Holy Eucharist, are the simple forms of thanksgiving we can offer every Sunday in response to God's blessings.  

3) Let us realize the truth that we all need healing from our spiritual leprosy. Although we may not suffer from physical leprosy, we may suffer from the  "spiritual leprosy" of sin which makes us unclean.  Jesus is our Savior who wants to heal us from this leprosy of sin.  Since Jesus is not afraid to touch our deepest impurities, let us not hide them.  Just as the lepers cried out to Jesus for healing, let us also ask Him to heal us from the spiritual leprosy of sins including impurity, injustice, hatred and prejudice. 

Winston Churchill loved to tell the story of the little boy who fell off a pier into deep ocean water. An older sailor, heedless of the great danger to himself, dove into the stormy water, struggled with the boy, and finally, exhausted, brought him to safety. Two days later the boy’s mother came with him to the same pier, seeking the sailor who rescued her son. Finding him, she asked, "You dove into the ocean to bring my boy out?" "I did," he replied. The mother quickly demanded, "Then where’s his hat?"

(Homilies of Fr. Anthony Kadavil)

Full Article

Philadelphia, Pa., Oct 4, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- What would you do if you're a young medical student who was told that you must participate in abortion in order to get your degree? Or if you and your family have to make the decision about what kind of life support and extraordinary care to provide a loved one in their final days? Or if you're a priest trying to counsel a couple in your parish through the difficult struggle with infertility? These are all questions Catholics in the 21st-century are facing – and each have complicated answers. Luckily, the Church has the National Catholic Bioethics Center, an independent Catholic institution based in Philadelphia, Pa., working to provide guidance based in Church teaching to laity, clergy, and scientific professionals to help them clarify the murky bioethical issues Catholics wade through in our world today. “What makes us unique,” said Dr. Marie Hilliard, director of bioethi...

Philadelphia, Pa., Oct 4, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- What would you do if you're a young medical student who was told that you must participate in abortion in order to get your degree? 

Or if you and your family have to make the decision about what kind of life support and extraordinary care to provide a loved one in their final days? 

Or if you're a priest trying to counsel a couple in your parish through the difficult struggle with infertility? 

These are all questions Catholics in the 21st-century are facing – and each have complicated answers. 

Luckily, the Church has the National Catholic Bioethics Center, an independent Catholic institution based in Philadelphia, Pa., working to provide guidance based in Church teaching to laity, clergy, and scientific professionals to help them clarify the murky bioethical issues Catholics wade through in our world today. 

“What makes us unique,” said Dr. Marie Hilliard, director of bioethics and public policy for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, or NCBC, “is that we are not a part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.” 

Hilliard added that the group is recognized by the U.S. bishops and has their support and has many bishops and cardinals and board members, but pointed out that the NCBC is focused not on creating doctrine or defining teaching for new situations, but putting existing Church teaching in practice in difficult situations. 

“We are there applying the principles with great adherence to the teaching of the Church,” she said. “We fill a very unique roll that's very different.”

The NCBC was founded in 1972 as the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center, in order to deal with new bioethical challenges facing the scientific and Catholic communities. The organization's founding was “ahead of the times,” as it was there to address game-changing bioethical challenges like the Supreme Court decisions permitting abortion in 1973, the HIV/AIDS crisis, stem cell isolation and research and the sequencing of the human genome, said president Dr. John M. Haas. 

The council's existence has enabled the NCBC to respond quickly to major developments in biotechnology, or even anticipate them, Haas said. He recalled a workshop the NCBC ran for the U.S. bishops in the late 1990s on the nature of man and how to approach the subject of humanity in the wake of new medical developments: one week after the conference ended, scientists announced that they had sequenced the human genome.

“It couldn't have been more timely or convergent with our program,” Haas told CNA. 

Over the years, the NCBC has developed a set of specialties where they focus their efforts. Their main areas of focus are publishing, including their award-winning National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, along with various commentaries and books; public policy; education for scientists, bishops, and medical professionals; and consultations. In their consultation work, the team fields and responds to more than 2000 individual consultation requests a year, as well as consultations for Catholic organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Catholic hospitals, along with consultations for bishops and dioceses. 

Most laypeople people who interact with the NCBC do so through their individual ethical consultations – the organization's personal consultations for people facing ethical dilemmas involving science or health care. Among the most common requests the staff ethicists receive are end-of-life issues, career selection, questions regarding sexuality and infertility, and resolving perceived contradictions between science and religion. 

“In terms of cases, we don't get the easy ones – and that's when they call us,” said Dr. Edward J. Furton, director of publications for the NCBC.  

Even though the cases the team receives are difficult ones, and each case is different, the NCBC strives to provide practical answers to people’s ethical dilemmas. 

“We are so practical,” Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education and ethicist for the NCBC told CNA. “It's not like sitting and writing scholarly journals at the university – we do some of that as well – but our focus is an intensely practical one.”

The NCBC's consultation work also is an opportunity for ministry and even to provide comfort for people facing some of life's most difficult challenges, Fr. Pacholczyk said. Whether it's a doctor facing a difficult choice in treating a patient or a family weighing their options as a loved one reaches the very end of life, the ethicists try to assist and guide those they counsel as best as they can. Often, Dr. Haas added, they receive notes thanking them for being so helpful in life’s most difficult choices. 

The National Catholic Bioethics Center extends its ministerial efforts to more than individual consultations. Fr. Pacholczyk’s work focuses on outreach and education, as well as answering consultations – especially those of priests and clergy. Throughout the year, Fr. Pacholczyk travels the country giving talks, helping to run National Catholic Bioethics Center’s certification program in healthcare ethics, and a workshop for bishops on how to apply Catholic teaching on ethics in practical situations. 

“It's a multi-pronged form of outreach,” Fr. Pacholczyk said.  

This multi-pronged approach also applies to the center’s work on public policy, which is headed by Dr. Hilliard. The center's work in responding to topics such as physician-assisted suicide, abortion, disabilities, conscience rights and religious freedom, scientific advancement and public funding of various research and public health measures, is an essential conversation for Catholics to be involved in, Dr. Hilliard said. 

“We live in a real world and we have to be there,” she said, stressing that Catholics need to be there to respond to “policies that are going to impact the world.”

Her role in offering an ethical analysis of policy proposals and measures has gained Dr. Hilliard recognition outside the Church as well. 

“Sometimes I get called ahead of time because they know I’ll be commenting extensively on something they’re proposing,” Dr. Hilliard said of notifications she receives of upcoming policy proposals from various government figures. 

Other faith traditions and secular institutions also look to Dr. Hilliard and the NCBC for collaboration and explanations of the natural moral law, because “we don't have to pull out the Bible,” but can justify their positions from a position of both faith and reason. 

The NCBC's publications also have garnered attention within the scholarly community as well. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly is an award-winning publication and major journal of medical ethics, and its readers include major pharmaceutical  companies, hospitals, and ethics professors of medical schools. 

The publications and the work the NCBC does more broadly fill a much-needed role in rigorously examining ethical issues. “No one out there has a moral tradition as highly sophisticated as that of the Catholic Church,” Dr. Furton said.  

“There's a great need for what we do, not only in the larger sphere in public comment and publications and educating people, but just one on one, it's a challenging thing to deal with these difficult moral questions that come to you in the course of a day.” 

Part of that great need has come in recent decades from a growing  perception that science and religion are at odds with one another. “These researchers think you just divide the world into objective and subjective. We scientists are objective; religious believers are subjective and make a leap of faith without any standing,” he said. 

Dr. Haas added that this false distinction mistakenly drives faithful college students from scientific fields. 

“We're losing young people by the dozens and the primary reason is they see an incompatibility between science and the faith,” he said. “If there is one area where there ought not to be any perceived incompatibility between science and a religion it’s within the framework of Catholicism.” 

Adding to the confusion is poor catechism and a misunderstanding of the Church’s natural law tradition, substituting Protestant or materialist views of science, reason, and faith that drive false wedges between faith and reason. 

Also, misunderstandings of the Church's moral tradition can drive people to take a position that is “too rigid” and misunderstands what the Church teaches, he said. “There's a lot of ignorance out there that needs to be overcome.”

However, overcoming ignorance and providing people with practical answers is precisely what the NCBC seeks to do.

“The Church brings something very substantive and when people can tap into that they realize that this goes back centuries – centuries of moral reflection,” Fr. Pacholczyk said. That tradition of the Church, he offered, is the center’s secret weapon.

“It’s a very powerful thing to have an institute or a group like this where we can sit and no two days working on this job are ever the same.”

Full Article

Amatrice, Italy, Oct 4, 2016 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis made an unannounced private visit to the small Italian city of Amatrice to offer support  areas devastated by a massive earthquake in August, where he offered a message of comfort and hope.“I let a bit of time pass, so that some things could be repaired such as the school, but from the first moment I felt that I had to come to you. Simply for nothing more than to pray. I pray for you,” the Pope said during his Oct. 4 visit.He said that “closeness and prayer” were the offering he brought, and prayed that the Lord would bless those affected, and that the Virgin Mary would “comfort you in this moment of sadness, pain and trial.”“Go forward, there is always a future, there are many loved ones who have left us. They have fallen here, let us pray to the Virgin for them. Let us do it together.”After arriving to Amatrice at 9:10 in the morning, the Pope, acc...

Amatrice, Italy, Oct 4, 2016 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Tuesday Pope Francis made an unannounced private visit to the small Italian city of Amatrice to offer support  areas devastated by a massive earthquake in August, where he offered a message of comfort and hope.

“I let a bit of time pass, so that some things could be repaired such as the school, but from the first moment I felt that I had to come to you. Simply for nothing more than to pray. I pray for you,” the Pope said during his Oct. 4 visit.

He said that “closeness and prayer” were the offering he brought, and prayed that the Lord would bless those affected, and that the Virgin Mary would “comfort you in this moment of sadness, pain and trial.”

“Go forward, there is always a future, there are many loved ones who have left us. They have fallen here, let us pray to the Virgin for them. Let us do it together.”

After arriving to Amatrice at 9:10 in the morning, the Pope, accompanied by Rieti’s Bishop Domenico Pompili, went directly to the city’s school, where he offered his brief words, comforted survivors and asked the children to join him in praying the Hail Mary.

He later visited the “red zone” of the city, which is where the majority of the destruction took place and is closed off due to reasons of security. Piles of rubble that have yet to be cleared away and half-destroyed buildings are still visible.

The Pope later went to the "San Raffaele Borona" assisted living home in Rieti, where he greeted 60 patients - most of whom are elderly who lost their homes in the earthquake - one by one, and ate lunch with them.

 

Pope and Pastor#PapaFrancesco greets a man who lost his wife and two children in the earthquake pic.twitter.com/7rxgE00Mci

— Greg Burke (@GregBurkeRome) October 4, 2016


 

On Sunday while on board his return flight from Baku, Azerbaijan to Rome, Pope Francis said that three dates had been proposed to him, and that while he didn’t remember the first two, one was the first Sunday of Advent, and that he needed “to choose” the date he wanted to go.

Regardless of the day, Francis said he wanted to make the visit “privately, alone, as a priest, as a bishop, as Pope, but alone, that's how I want to do it. I would like to be close to the people.”

Close to 300 people were killed when a 6.2-magnitude quake hit the town of Norcia Aug. 24, at 3:36a.m. with several strong aftershocks following. Out of those who died, more than 230 were from Amatrice.

At one point after the initial quake, the mayor of Amatrice, one of the worst-hit areas, said “the town is gone.”

The day of the earthquake Pope Francis was scheduled to hold his weekly general audience, however, instead of giving his usual catechesis, he put the speech aside and led those present in praying a rosary for the victims of the earthquake.

In his Aug. 28 Angelus address, the Pope expressed his “spiritual closeness to the inhabitants of Lazio, delle Marche and Umbria, which have been greatly affected by the recent earthquake.”

He offered special closeness to the people of Amatrice, Accumoli, Arquata and Pescara del Tronto and Norcia, telling them that “the Church shares their suffering and their concern.”

Rumors have circulated in the media saying that Pope Francis could stop in Assisi while on his way back to the Vatican to mark the Oct. 4 feast his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, but it has yet to be confirmed.

Full Article

Vatican City, Oct 4, 2016 / 05:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has tapped two active bishops to head new dioceses, naming Bishop Paul D. Etienne of Cheyenne as the new Archbishop of Anchorage, and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh as Bishop of Arlington.Announced in an Oct. 4 communique from the Vatican, the appointments came as the former bishops of Anchorage and Arlington go into retirement, after having reached the age limit.Archbishop-elect Paul D. Etienne, 57, is an Indiana outdoorsman with many relatives also in the priesthood or religious life.Born in Philadelphia in 1959, the bishop grew up as one of six children to parents who have been married more than 50 years. Two of his brothers are priests, and his sister is a religious.He graduated from the University of St. Thomas/St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. with a degree in Business Administration before studying at the North American College in Rome and receiving a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from...

Vatican City, Oct 4, 2016 / 05:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has tapped two active bishops to head new dioceses, naming Bishop Paul D. Etienne of Cheyenne as the new Archbishop of Anchorage, and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh as Bishop of Arlington.

Announced in an Oct. 4 communique from the Vatican, the appointments came as the former bishops of Anchorage and Arlington go into retirement, after having reached the age limit.

Archbishop-elect Paul D. Etienne, 57, is an Indiana outdoorsman with many relatives also in the priesthood or religious life.

Born in Philadelphia in 1959, the bishop grew up as one of six children to parents who have been married more than 50 years. Two of his brothers are priests, and his sister is a religious.

He graduated from the University of St. Thomas/St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. with a degree in Business Administration before studying at the North American College in Rome and receiving a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Following his priestly ordination in 1992 for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Fr. Etienne worked as an associate pastor and assistant vocation director before returning to Rome to receive his License in Spiritual Theology.

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1995, he served as the vocation director for the archdiocese, vice-rector of the Bishop Simon Brute College Seminary in Indianapolis and as a parish priest.

He also served as a member of the Council of Consultors and Council of Priests for the diocese before being appointed as Bishop of Cheyenne in 2009. No date has yet been announced for when he will take over as Archbishop of Anchorage, Alaska.

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, 59 and who until now has served as the bishop of Raleigh, North Carolina, will be present in Arlington, Texas to announce his appointment as the fourth Bishop of the diocese.

Born June 16, 1957, he attended Catholic grade schools and graduated from Cardinal O'Hara High School, Springfield, PA, in 1975. He then entered St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by John Cardinal Krol in 1984.

The bishop holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Masers in Theology from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, as well as a Masters in Education Administration from Villanova University. He also holds a doctorate in Education from Immaculata College.

He served as a parish priest for St. Bernard Church in Philadelphia before being named to the faculties of, successively, Cardinal O'Hara High School, Archbishop Wood High School and St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where he also served as Dean of Students until 1992.

In 1992 he was named Administrative Secretary to Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia, a role that he held until 1999. A year earlier, he was made Honorary Prelate to Pope John Paul II, receiving the title of Monsignor. He then served as Rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary until 2004.

Bishop Burbidge was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia in 2002, and in 1006 was named the fifth Bishop of Raleigh. The bishop currently serves as Chair of the USCCB Committee for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, which he has been a member of since 2007.

He is also a member of the Administrative and Communications Committees, and is an advisor for the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors.

The bishop is also a current member of the Board of Trustees for The Catholic University of America, and has recently completed a 5-year term as Co-Chair of the International Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue, which is sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

In an initial Oct. 4 statement on his appointment as the new Bishop of Arlington, Burbidge said serving in Raleigh has been a “profound pleasure,” and that he has never forgotten the “warmth and love” he was welcomed with.

He thanked the priests, deacons, religious and lay people for their support and kindness, and voiced his certainty that he will be welcomed to Arlington with “the same joy and love” he found in his former diocese.

Full Article

PARIS (AP) -- French police on Tuesday continued hunting for five people suspected of assaulting Kim Kardashian West in a private Paris residence before robbing her of more than $10 million worth of jewelry....

PARIS (AP) -- French police on Tuesday continued hunting for five people suspected of assaulting Kim Kardashian West in a private Paris residence before robbing her of more than $10 million worth of jewelry....

Full Article

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has told President Barack Obama "you can go to hell" in his latest tirade against the U.S. over its criticism of his deadly anti-drug campaign....

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has told President Barack Obama "you can go to hell" in his latest tirade against the U.S. over its criticism of his deadly anti-drug campaign....

Full Article

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- British-born scientists David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz were awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for studies on exotic matter that could result in improved materials for electronics or quantum computers....

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- British-born scientists David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz were awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for studies on exotic matter that could result in improved materials for electronics or quantum computers....

Full Article

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- It was just a scraped knee. So 3-year-old Ashley Pacheco's parents did what parents do: They gave her a hug, cleaned the wound twice with rubbing alcohol and thought no more of it....

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- It was just a scraped knee. So 3-year-old Ashley Pacheco's parents did what parents do: They gave her a hug, cleaned the wound twice with rubbing alcohol and thought no more of it....

Full Article

BRUSSELS (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. isn't abandoning its pursuit of peace in Syria despite suspending U.S.-Russian talks on a cease-fire....

BRUSSELS (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the U.S. isn't abandoning its pursuit of peace in Syria despite suspending U.S.-Russian talks on a cease-fire....

Full Article

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian government forces pressed their assault Tuesday on the eastern, rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, opposition activists said, while state media reported that rebel shelling of government-controlled part of the city left six dead, including two students killed at a university campus....

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian government forces pressed their assault Tuesday on the eastern, rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, opposition activists said, while state media reported that rebel shelling of government-controlled part of the city left six dead, including two students killed at a university campus....

Full Article

Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Soundcloud

Public Inspection File | EEO

© 2015 - 2021 Spirit FM 90.5 - All Rights Reserved.