New Orleans Archdiocese 'buries' Katrina, looks to move on
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) -- Citing the abundant blessings that have followed the suffering and deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond marked the fifth anniversary of the nation's worst natural disaster Aug. 29 with a Mass and an interfaith prayer service at St. Louis Cathedral. "Five years later, we remember the unwelcome visit of Katrina, but we have put her to rest," Archbishop Aymond said in his homily at the Mass, which was celebrated in honor of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, the patroness of the archdiocese. "Wherever she is, it doesn't matter to us because she no longer has power over us. We must move on with the power of Christ." A day earlier, Archbishop Aymond had been a principal speaker at a Katrina "funeral," celebrated at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Church in Chalmette. He remarked that when the Katrina casket, filled with personal prayers and notes from individuals, was closed, people spontaneously broke out in cheers and applause. "It was a very moving experience," Archbishop Aymond said. "The people had the opportunity to put notes about Katrina (into the casket), which I'm sure said things like, 'Never come back,' but they also included some of their own hurts and memories and emotions and wounds." He added: "This weekend, we bury Katrina. She has caused many deaths. We will not forget her, but she is buried."
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WORLD
In Haiti's south, aid, health care hard to come by for quake survivors
CAYES-JACMEL, Haiti (CNS) -- Hyppolite Lappe, an agronomics student, stood in a long line at a health clinic run by American volunteers at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish. His elderly mother was by his side. He watched as tempers flared under a hot August sun while people pushed and shouted trying to get to the registration table. "Haiti has so many difficult situations," said Lappe, who was displaced by Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake. "People have lost their homes, jobs. They cannot find food to feed their families and there are few doctors here." Then he turned to ask the volunteers if he could move his elderly mother to the front of the long lines. They politely declined; other elderly people were in line waiting, too. The clinic is one of the few options for health care in the region since the quake, which left most of the local hospital in nearby Jacmel in ruins. Visiting Swiss and Cuban doctors have provided intermittent medical care in the Cayes-Jacmel area, but there has been little more help for the sick and injured. The temblor not only destroyed large sections of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince 45 miles away but damaged an estimated 70 percent of homes in the Jacmel region on Haiti's southern shore. The area has received little aid despite its proximity to Port-au-Prince. Rough mountain roads between the capital and the region are difficult to traverse. Refugees from the city still crowd the way.
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Response to Eucharist is gratitude for undeserved gift, pope says
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- When attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist, Catholics must be filled with gratitude for God's great gifts, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of his former students. "Despite the fact that we have nothing to give in return and we are full of faults," the pope said, Jesus "invites us to his table and wants to be with us." The pope presided at a Mass Aug. 29 in Castel Gandolfo during his annual meeting with students who did their doctorates with him when he was a professor in Germany. Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, a regular participant in the "Ratzinger Schulerkreis" (Ratzinger student circle), gave the homily at the Mass, but the pope made remarks at the beginning of the liturgy. The Vatican released the text of the pope's remarks Aug. 31. Introducing the penitential rite, Pope Benedict said: "In today's Gospel the Lord makes us see how, in reality, we continue to live like the pagans do. We extend invitations only to those who can invite us. We give only to those who can give back." In the day's Gospel passage from Luke, Jesus tells his disciples not to invite the rich to dinner "in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." The pope told his former students that "God's style" of inviting people is clear in the gift of the Eucharist.
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Mexican bishops mark bicentennial with call for reconciliation
MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- As Mexico began bicentennial celebrations of its independence from Spain, the Mexican bishops' conference issued a wide-ranging pastoral letter, calling for a national reconciliation of the centuries-old divisions over ethnicity, historical interpretations and the often-strained relationship between church and state. "One of the great pending tasks ... is the reconciliation among all those that formed this great nation," the bishops said in their Aug. 30 letter. Reconciliation with the past means "accepting our indigenous and European roots, especially Spanish (roots)," the bishops said. It also means "eliminating secular fundamentalism and religious intolerance of any kind." In the letter, the bishops urged action to fight the country's rampant poverty and called for structural changes so that the country's officially secular education system "becomes a true school of respect and appreciation of the cultural and religious differences." Archbishop Alberto Suarez Inda of Morelia, president of the bishops' commission on the bicentennial said: "The bishops of Mexico think that it would be a sin of omission to stay on the margins and keep silent about ... history. As citizens and as Christians we consider it a duty to join in the commemoration of these significant historic acts." The bishops published the letter as a booklet of 140 key points.
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Bricks from collapsed chapel used in memorial to Haitian quake victims
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNS) -- Some 800 bricks from a collapsed chapel at St. Louis King of France Parish now stand in a new memorial to Haitian earthquake victims. The bricks take the shape of two converging walls with a colorful cross in the middle. A crack running from the ground up signifies the earthquake damage. Many of the bricks bear the names of the local deceased, including the names of the Montfort priest and 10 seminarians who were killed while sitting in a van, crushed by a carport. The collapsed parish chapel killed 10 parishioners who had gathered for a prayer service, said Montfort Father Quesnel Alphonse, pastor. "I could easily have been one of those killed, but by God's grace I lived, and this was an idea I had to pay homage to those who lived," he told Catholic News Service through a translator. Months of planning and local donations of more than $13,000 helped launch the project. The monument was designed by local architect and engineer Indra Lafontan. Some of the bricks will remain blank to signify the estimated hundreds of thousands of earthquake victims as well as those whose remains were never found or identified, said Father Alphonse.
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Philippine bishop leads prayer, Mass at site of hostage incident
MANILA, Philippines (CNS) -- Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Manila led hundreds of people from various faiths in prayer at the site of a hostage incident that left nine people, mostly Chinese tourists, dead. "It is indeed new life that we are praying and asking for in this occasion: new life for those unjustly killed," Bishop Pabillo said Aug. 31 in his homily during the traditional ninth-day Mass for the dead commemorating victims of the incident. His remarks were reported by the Asian church news agency UCA News. The bishop also prayed for healing "for those who survived yet are deeply wounded physically, emotionally and psychologically." Former police officer Rolando Mendoza hijacked a tourist bus in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Manila Aug. 23 and held hostage 21 Hong Kong tourists and four Filipinos. After an 11-hour standoff, Mendoza and eight tourists were killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. "Let those who dispense justice do their job well, and soon. This terrible case is also calling out to heaven for justice," Bishop Pabillo said. Chinese people are not the only ones "calling for a just and swift investigation," the prelate noted. "We Filipinos demand the same from our officials."
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PEOPLE
Pope has series of interviews with German journalist
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Just as he did twice before being elected to the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI sat down for a series of conversations, spread over a week, with German journalist Peter Seewald. The results of the first conversations were the book-length interviews "Salt of the Earth," published in 1996, and "God and the World," published in 2002. The books covered a wide variety of subjects, including Pope Benedict's youth, his teaching career in Germany and his work as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said Seewald and the pope held a series of conversations the week of July 26-31 at the papal summer villa in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome. The pope responded to "questions on a variety of arguments" just as he did for Seewald's earlier books, Father Lombardi said in a statement Aug. 31.
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Knights of Peter Claver elect youngest supreme knight, CEO ever
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) -- F. DeKarlos Blackmon, 34, of Huntsville, Ala., has been elected the youngest supreme knight and CEO in the history of the century-old Knights of Peter Claver. Running on a platform of unity and progressive change, Blackmon was elected to the post during the national convention of the nation's only African-American Catholic fraternal organization and the world's largest black Catholic lay organization. The convention, held in early August, drew more than 1,000 members from around the country to St. Louis' Millennium Hotel. Blackmon is the pastoral associate and director of liturgy and music for St. Joseph Catholic Church and taught vocal music and theology at Pope John Paul II Catholic High School, both in Huntsville. He holds a master's degree in business administration with a concentration in public management and is pursuing a master of arts in pastoral ministry from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. Blackmon also served in the U.S. Army chaplains' corps. In addition to his military service, he has served as choral director, pianist, organist or music director for various churches, Protestant and Catholic, throughout the southeastern United States and in Korea. In an address to the post-convention joint board of directors meeting with the Ladies of Peter Claver, Blackmon said he brought "a vision that moves beyond the go along to get along politics that we have experienced in our order, and the rhetoric that divides us."
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