National Catholic Reporter back issues from June 1996:
Reaching for common ground: group meets to end name-calling and search for unity in coping with abortion issues.(Common Ground Network for Life and Choice)
Jun 14, 1996; ... MADISON, Wis. - Five years ago in St. Louis Jean Cavender and B.J. Isaacson made an urgent appeal to their friend Loretto Wagner. Could Our Lady's Inn, the home Wagner ran for single pregnant women, receive a 9-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather and who was more than seven ...
NCR's Wirpsa wins Eileen Egan award.(National Catholic Reporter's Leslie Wirpsa; Eileen Egan Journalism Award)(Editorial)
Jun 14, 1996; ... Be it feeding the hungry, educating for peace, welcoming the homeless or otherwise offering simple acts of Christian encouragement, for decades Eileen Egan has been a Catholic role model. She has graced Catholic Relief Services, Pax Christi U.S.A. and the Catholic Worker movement and ...
Activists plan interfaith AIDS network.(includes profile of AIDS patient Janice Burns)
Jun 14, 1996; ... GARRISON, N.Y. - The complex involvement of religious groups in the fight against AIDS - as comforters o those afflicted with the disease and, at the same time, as the leading critics o behavior that causes it - was a central theme of a mid-May interfaith conference.While urban ...
Survey finds Catholics want more say.(U.S. Catholics want a more democratic church)
Jun 14, 1996 ... The overwhelming majority of U.S. Catholics want their next pope to radically democratize the church, a new national survey has found.It found, by large numbers, Catholics want lay Vatican advisers, the election of bishops, a pope more open to change, the ordination of women and ...
Muslim extremism just part of the story.(need for interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders)(includes information on Muslim-Catholic contacts in the U.S.)
Jun 14, 1996; ... WASHINGTON - On May 23, Algeria's Muslim extremists said they had slit the throats of seven kidnapped French Trappist monks. They said their faith justifies taking the lives of nonbelievers.Islamic extremists have bombed buses in Israel and attempted to take down the World Trade ...
Ahmadi Muslims follow a pacifist path.
Jun 14, 1996; ... SILVER SPRING, Md. - They are Muslim pacifist. Their minaret is silent; they don't want to disturb their semirural Maryland neighbors, and there are probably no Muslims living within earshot anyway.They know about being disturbed, for they are rejected by mainstream Islam and ...
'Unpredictable' charisms needed for future church.(Cardinal Suenens Symposium)
Jun 14, 1996; ... If the church of the third millennium is to be a vital force in the world, it must make better use of the unpredictable and sometimes volatile gifts of the Holy Spirit latent in its own members. And it needs to recognize the Spirit's gifts already present in the people it seeks to serve and ...
Test ban treaty faces two major U.S. obstacles.
Jun 14, 1996; ... President Clinton is on record as wanting a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the end of June, a development that would represent a major step toward implementation of Article 6 of the 1970 Nonproliferation Treaty, which requires eventual elimination of all nuclear arsenals. ...
200,000 rally to fix focus on children's needs.(Stand for Children rally)
Jun 14, 1996; ... WASHINGTON - "Each state should be doing this," said Patrice Richardson of Cincinnati, as she indicated the crowds and speakers at the "Stand for Children" national rally that attracted more than 200,000 here June 1.The rally was one of two recent focal points depicting the plight ...
Guadalupe caught in clerical struggle.(controversy over historical reliability of Our Lady of Guadalupe apparition in Mexico)
Jun 14, 1996; ... CUERNAVACA, Mexico - Mexico's economic and political turmoil was edged off the front pages of the nation's newspapers when the guardian of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe for 33 years denied the reality of the apparition and the existence of Blessed Juan Diego to whom the Virgin ...
Bishop ordains two women for Old Catholics.(Bishop Joachim Vobbe)
Jun 14, 1996; ... In a move hailed as highly symbolic by advocates of women's ordination and highly offensive by U.S. leaders of the Old Catholic church, a German bishop of that denomination laid hands on two female deacons on May 27, ordaining them priests.Although the Old Catholic church is small ...
Vatican threatens Sri Lankan who linked Mary, liberation.(Fr. Tissa Balasuriya)
Jun 14, 1996; ... Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, Sri Lankan theologian and one of the few Catholic thinkers who specialize in Catholic theology for an Asian audience, is prepared to take civil action against his country's bishops for misrepresenting his views and denying him due process.Balasuriya was ...
Gay and Lesbian Rights: A Question of Sexual Ethics or Social Justice?
Jun 14, 1996; ... Crosier Fr. Theodore Kwaku Parker may be the funniest man in Harlem, New York City. Pressed for his opinion of a recent, tortuous prayer service, the kindly pastor replied in all sincerity: "It was very nicely typed."Loads of typing happened after Donald Maher's comment in my Feb. ...
An ideal of service that money can't buy.(Pres. Clinton's proposal for grants toward college costs in return for community service)(Column)
Jun 14, 1996; ... How should the young be taught goodness? President Clinton believes that charity, justice, service - elements of goodness - should be taught by payments of money.In his Penn State commencement speech, Clinton proposed that a $500 federal grant toward college costs be given as a ...
McBrien's not the issue as bishops confuse laity.(controversy over Richard McBriens' book 'Catholicism')(Column)
Jun 14, 1996; ... Dear Bishop Pilarczyk:I note with interest that you and your committee have issued a "review" that is a quasi-condemnation of Notre Dame Professor Richard McBrien's book Catholicism. The argument seems to be that the book will confuse many Catholic laity.I leave aside ...
Different priorities, fair government basic to survival of nation's children.(Stand for Children rally)(Editorial)
Jun 14, 1996 ... There is something callous about the posturing of those who launched a public campaign against the organizers of the June 1 "Stand for Children" rally in Washington. Those people, far removed from the ranks of the hungry and impoverished, used their well-oiled propaganda machines, from faxes ...
Voters won't vote unless political discourse changes.(Editorial)
Jun 14, 1996 ... Some things, when repeated often enough, take on the mantle of truth. For example, the reasons people don't vote. It is frequently said that low voter turnout is due to people's alienation from the system. Fact or fiction?As so often happens, the truth is more complex. It turns out ...
Bernardin's spirit lifted by ministry to cancer patients: thoughts of facing death, result in new priorities, inner peace, laughter. (68-year-old Cardinal Joseph Bernardin also a cancer survivor)
Jun 28, 1996; ... CHICAGO -- One year to the hour after coming out from under the surgical knife, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was sitting behind his desk on the second floor of his Chicago lakefront home. Looking lean and relaxed, the archbishop of Chicago was eager to share some good news. "This," he said, "is ...
War tax protest threatens family farm. (IRS to sell farm of Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos for $62,000 in back taxes)
Jun 28, 1996; ... Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos, subsistence agricultural workers, raise and market organic blueberries and blueberry products and also sell books by and about Gandhi.They make about $18,000 a year, pay taxes to the state of Maine and their local town, Hartford, but refuse to ...
Listening key as foes seek common goals: abortion activists find hospitality helps melt barriers. (Common Ground Network for Life and Choice)
Jun 28, 1996; ... MADISON, Wis. -- What prompts adversaries on either side of such an inflammatory issue as abortion to stop shouting at each other and begin to converse? And how do they, on a practical level, do it?Interviews with people gathered at the the first national level conference of the ...
Theologians say robust discourse needed: McBrien, cosmology, freedom of Vatican II fill CTSA discussions. (Catholic Theological Society of America)
Jun 28, 1996; ... SAN DIEGO -- In the tone of its plenary sessions and group meetings and in the passage of a rebuke to a committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Theological Society of America gave notice here that the church is in for more spirited dialogue, not less. ...
Needs, not money, where nun's mouth is. (Sheila Walsh is California state lobbyist for Jericho, which works for the poor)
Jun 28, 1996; ... SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In the cafeteria on the top floor of the state Capitol here, designer-suited lobbyists are snapping the clasps on their attache cases and talking into their cellular phones.Sister of Social Service Sheila Walsh is a lobbyist, too, although she does not own a ...
Catholic men form own group in image of Promise Keepers. (male spirituality and the CatholicMen Fellowships)
Jun 28, 1996 ... On a Sunday, early this year, approximately 300 Roman Catholic men, most from Southern California, spent all day in an auditorium evangelizing themselves.They gathered at Chapman University, a Protestant college located in conservative Orange Country. Their meeting, organized by ...
Church burnings widely condemned. (arson attacks on Black southern churches)
Jun 28, 1996 ... Voicing concerns about a rash of fires at churches in the South, Catholic leaders decried the burnings as evidence of racism in the United States.In a June 10 statement, Cleveland Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, called on ...
Priest ordained at Dachau beatified for defying Nazis. (Karl Leisner)
Jun 28, 1996; ... BERLIN -- The face of the 80-year-old man shone as he answered: "No, I never regretted that my brother did what he believed was right. The whole family felt that way even though it meant that we lost him at the age of only 30."Willi Leisner sat in his dining room here talking about ...
Paramilitaries scourge Mexican village. (Chinchulines destroyed and killed in Bachajon, Mexico)
Jun 28, 1996; ... BACHAJON, Mexico -- Jose Francisco Meneses is getting used to living with fear. The director of a Catholic church-sponsored human rights office in this remote corner of Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas, Meneses says he and other pastoral workers here will "sooner or later have to pay ...
Arts festival expands horizons for W. Virginia parishes: Croatian children's art cries out against atrocities everywhere. (Comfort My Children, art exhibition started by nun in Martinsburg, W. Va.)(Cover Story)
Jun 28, 1996; ... In one picture, bodies are sprawled every which way at the bottom of a black pit. In another, a group of soldiers shoot down a dove signifying peace. Barbed wire on every side. Refugees huddled. Again and again the mass graves. The images are already etched on the world's consciousness by ...
Church-state tensions ease; Cubans fill pews. (Catholic church)
Jun 28, 1996; ... HAVANA--On a sunny Sunday morning, Alfredo Rojas sat outside Havana's main cathedral drinking a beer while his wife, Elsa, sat inside listening to Cardinal Jaime Ortega's weekly homily.A 32-year-old Havana native, Alfredo said, although he didn't really know why his wife suddenly ...
U.S. slow on Panama cleanup, critics say. (toxic wastes at government installations)
Jun 28, 1996; ... Concern is growing among the Panamanian people as the year 2000 approaches, the date established by the Torrijos-Carter treaties of 1974 for the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Panama after decades of military presence there.Panamanians are asking: Why hasn't the U.S ....
Israeli-based priest says peace process will go on. (even after election defeat of Shimon Peres)
Jun 28, 1996; ... LIVINGSTON, N.J. -- Last month's Israeli election, which saw the defeat of Prime Minister Shimon Peres, was not a vote that showed Israelis split on the peace process, said an Israeli Franciscan priest during a talk here. Rather it was a vote on who could do the better job in achieving ...
Peace talks eclipsed by other Irish events.(Column)
Jun 28, 1996; ... The long-desired, long-delayed peace talks in Northern Ireland arrived, true to form, amid an explosion of unexpected incidents, accusations and possible realignments that may change the shape of the Irish question for years to come.The peace talks got under way June 10 with heavy ...
The History of Vatican II, vol 1: Announcing and Preparing for Vatican Council II, Towards a New Era in Catholicism.
Jun 28, 1996; ... At a distance of less than 40 years, it is hard to recall the climate of legalistically controlled uniformity in which Catholics were living during the 1950s and for some considerable time before. A major value of this history of the preparations for the Second Vatican Council, from January ...
A deeper faith may shake church, state.(Column)
Jun 28, 1996; ... What needs consideration is whether we are in a period of no faith or on the verge of another kind of faith.When I was growing up in the pre-Vatican II church, a few things were still not unarguably clear. How God would deal with people who got divorced was anybody's guess. What ...
Immigrants needed in California fields: INS knows it.(Column)
Jun 28, 1996; ... Immigration legislation recently passed by Congress calls for spending $12 million to add two more tiers to a 14-mile-long steel wall on the Mexican border between Tijuana and San Ysidro, Calif. There are places on that stretch of the border between the Pacific Ocean and Otay Mesa where ...
Words that express our realities deserve to be praised, preserved. (variants in language)(Column)
Jun 28, 1996; ... Language. Mother tongue. Without an event that jars our sense of its place in our lives, we tend to take the expressive mode for granted. It comes along with our earliest need gratifications or lacks thereof, and, absent an impediment, becomes an almost automatic tool we will nevertheless ...
Burning churches manifest deeper problems. (hate crime against American Africans)(Editorial)
Jun 28, 1996 ... Fire must occupy a frightening niche in the imagination of African-Americans.Burning crosses and burned-down homesteads and churches and charred inner-city neighborhoods have long been familiar iconography of black struggle and rage.And fire has come haunting again. In ...
Galloping fundamentalism erodes church life.(Editorial)
Jun 28, 1996 ... During times such as these it is often helpful to remember the word catholic means universal. It does not mean uniform. The 20th century has had its obvious shortcomings. It has been characterized much more than we would like by hatred and warfare. However, it has also revealed signs of ...