Catholic New World - News Digest

News Update

Wedding Mass in September

The Golden Wedding Anniversary Mass will be held Sept. 23 at 2:45 p.m. at Holy Name Cathedral. Couples married in 1962 interested in attending this celebration should contact their parish to register. For information call the Family Ministries Office at (312) 534-8351 or visit www.familyministries.org.

Sheen made 'venerable'

(CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has approved the heroic virtues of U.S. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the Vatican announced June 28, clearing the way for the advancement of his sainthood cause. Among the others honored in decrees announced the same day were first prelate of Opus Dei, the Canadian and Irish-American founders of two orders of religious women, a priest murdered by the Sicilian Mafia, and 154 martyrs killed during the Spanish Civil War.

Archbishop Sheen heroically lived Christian virtues and should be considered "venerable," said a decree issued by the Congregation for Saints' Causes and signed by Pope Benedict. Before the archbishop can be beatified, the Vatican must recognize that a miracle has occurred through his intercession. The decree came just more than 13 months after Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, Ill., presented Pope Benedict with two thick volumes about the life of Archbishop Sheen, whose home diocese was Peoria.

Archbishop Sheen, who was born in Illinois in 1895 and died in New York in 1979, was an Emmy-winning televangelist. His program, "Life is Worth Living," aired in the United States from 1951 to 1957. Last September, a tribunal of inquiry was sworn in to investigate the allegedly miraculous healing of a newborn whose parents had prayed to the archbishop's intercession. "This is a great day for the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and the Catholic Church in America," said Bishop Jenky.

Msgr. Stanley Deptula, executive director of the Archbishop Fulton John Sheen Foundation in Peoria, said it was "not a coincidence that the church would render its decision on the heroic virtue of Archbishop Sheen on the same day as the Supreme Court issues its decision on the health care plan."

News Digest

Restoring tradition is a work in progress

Five years after Pope Benedict XVI lifted most restrictions on celebration of the Tridentine Mass, a senior Vatican official says that much work remains to make the traditional liturgy fully accessible to the faithful, and to bring its influence to bear on the form of the Mass most Catholics attend.

"There's no question that there remains in certain places a resistance to what the Holy Father has asked, and that's sad," says Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature and a former archbishop of St. Louis. "It's sometimes even an expression of disagreement with the Holy Father's discipline and even an expression that this is harmful for the church."

Pope to visit Lebanon,meet Christians, Muslims in September

Pope Benedict XVI will present a papal document addressing the church's concerns in the Middle East, meet with representatives of local Christian and Muslim communities, and address political and cultural leaders on a three-day visit to Lebanon Sept. 14-16.

Pope Benedict's primary task on the trip will be to present a document, called an apostolic exhortation, based on the deliberations of a special synod of bishops held at the Vatican in 2009.

Catholic New World - Newspaper for the Archdiocese of Chicago