a column of benevolent gossip

• New spin on Mother Superior —

  Michelle Renee Thompson, new “Mother Superior,” with Oscar.
  Vicki Quade, creator and co-author of “Late Nite Catechism,” and a parishioner at St. Clement’s (W. Deming), has a new actress joining her comedy “Sunday School Cinema.” This month Michelle Renee Thompson takes the stage at the Royal George (N. Halsted), as the all knowing, movie-loving nun, Mother Superior Mary Margaret Toussaint. Thompson is the first African-American to play the role. Mother knows a good film from those on the condemned list. And while she’ll let you call out your favorites, from mobster flicks to aliens, she’ll set you straight with her authoritative thumbs-up-or-down.

• ‘Free at last’ —

  For how long, is the question. Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly is an ailing Catholic priest in Vietnam, who has spent 15 of his last 32 years years in prison. His story appeared in Clips in 2003, in response to an alert from Amnesty International, naming him a prisoner of conscience. At the time he had just received another prison sentence. Van Ly did not go quietly into the night. He’s been a human rights activist, in and out of a cell, asking for the return of church property confiscated by the state and the release of all prisoners detained for religious beliefs. During another trial in 2007, police muzzled him for shouting anti-communist slogans in court and for accusing Vietnamese officials of practicing “the law of the jungle.” After recently suffering two strokes in prison, Van Ly, now 63, was released into the care of his sister March 17. He is one of those brave “dry martyrs” Bishop Fulton Sheen used to preach about.

• Parish Potpourri —

  On April 10, 1970, Father John Lucas began the first 5 p.m. Saturday guitar Mass at St. Cyprian Church (River Grove). The folk Mass is still a part of their Saturday tradition 40 years later. A reunion of all past and present group members took place April 10 at (what else?) the 5 p.m. Mass. Anyone who was part of the group at one time or another was invited back to celebrate and join the musical ensemble that evening.

• Home coming —

  Maryknoll Father John Cuff’s
  Maryknoll Father John Cuff
  40th jubilee was last July. He celebrated with his family including his four younger sisters and their extended families from around the country, in St. Germaine Parish (Oak Lawn). Since growing up in St. Justin Martyr’s (S. Honore) and St. Gerald’s (Oak Lawn), Cuff spent 29 years in Hong Kong and eight years teaching in China. (He also worked three years for Maryknoll here in Chicago). Missionaries don’t enjoy sitting still very long. When not plugging Maryknoll Magazine on weekends, he has started attending Cantonese and Mandarin Masses at St. Therese Chinese Catholic Church (W. Alexander). Xaverian Father Michael Davitti, pastor, was welcomed. For a number of weeks Cuff happily met with four Cantonese- speaking adults and one of their children who were in the parish RCIA program. The pastor had been preparing them for entry into the Catholic faith for the past year and he baptized them at the Easter Vigil Mass. (Cuff expects to return to China next year for Maryknoll’s 100th Anniversary.)

• Life in Russia —

  During her 11 years as a Daughter of St. Paul, Sister Roberta Hummel spent a couple summers in the arch at Pauline Books & Media (N. Michigan). Her most unique assignment has to be her current one at their book store in the heart of Moscow. They’re the only Catholic publishers in Russia and run the only Catholic book center there. In an article printed six months ago in the Arlington Catholic Herald in Arlington, Va., Hummel’s hometown, she said the book store is: “a neutral zone where Catholics and Orthodox can come and find resources and talk about when the church was still one.” After the deadly March 29 suicide bombings during morning rush hour in Moscow, Hummel quickly e-mailed her reaction: “Praying for those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks in Moscow’s metro stations today. Regi and I were there and had we arrived on the metro three minutes earlier we may not have been so lucky. Makes you more grateful for the gift of life.”
  

Send your benevolent gossip to Church Clips, Catholic New World, P.O. Box 1979, Chicago, IL 60690-1979; or e-mail to dmadlener@catholicnewworld.com.