Roman catholic

The Indianapolis Roman Catholic Church opened its doors to black people at a time when others turned their backs on them. Opposition to the education of black children was common in Indiana. State laws explicitly called for separate but equal services for citizens living in Indiana. Leaders within the church worked in this contemporary reality by creating new opportunities where there were few.

This column highlights one of the parishes in Indianapolis and how its buildings were used to put the words of the church into action. A second column will continue the history of this parish as well as others who have represented all in Indianapolis.

St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church (hereinafter referred to as St. Bridget’s Church) was founded in 1879, with construction beginning in June of that year at a site on West Street (now known as Dr . Martin Luther King, Jr. Street) at Rue Saint-Clair. The neighborhood when the church was founded was called Jimmy Blake’s Woods. The sanctuary of the Sainte-Brigide church was consecrated on January 1, 1880.

This parish was primarily designed to serve Irish immigrants who had already settled here as well as those who were to move to Indianapolis in the years to come. Eventually, the congregation became a predominantly black congregation. Some reports have indicated that blacks have been a part of St. Bridget’s Church since its initial founding.

The name of the parish was chosen to recognize one of the three patron saints of Ireland: Sainte-Brigide; the other two patron saints of Ireland are St. Patrick and St. Colmcille. (Many people use Sainte Brigitte to refer to the saint in English; Sainte Colombe is also used as the spelling for Sainte Colmcille.)

The feast day of St. Bridget of Ireland was removed from the official calendar of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Paul VI in 1969. The Pope took this action for a number of Saints whose Church has determined to be. ‘a confirmed story was missing. While the feast of Saint Bridget of Ireland has been removed, there is still an annual feast for Saint Bridget of Sweden on the church calendar on July 23.

One of the aspects that the church could not confirm with certainty was whether Saint Bridget of Ireland actually existed or if her life story was a legend. Her name was also the name of a Celtic goddess that many Irish worshiped before Ireland became primarily Roman Catholic. A number of reports have indicated that Saint Bridget (the person) was conceived as the daughter of a slave and a high-ranking nobleman who owned her mother as property.

For many Irish, whether real or legendary, is somewhat unimportant. It’s what she stands for that counts. The story – the caption – said that his compassion and kindness was exemplified by his willingness to help those in need.

A year after the church was consecrated, the parish added a school to its property when St. Bridget Roman Catholic School was founded in 1881. It was also called St. Bridget Roman Catholic Academy. Hereinafter, this school is referred to as St. Bridget School.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, public policy in the state of Indiana was separate but equal and was practiced by many people – inside and outside government departments – at Indianapolis. This included the operations of elementary schools within the Indianapolis Roman Catholic Church.

St. Bridget’s Church has established a separate elementary school for “colored children”: St. Ann’s Roman Catholic School (hereinafter referred to as St. Ann’s School). This school opened on Fayette Street at its intersection with Pratt Street (now known as Ninth Street) in 1892. Referring to this school, some newspapers of the time added the words “for colored children ”or“ for black children ”in the reports. .

The funeral notice from Reverend Daniel Curran, the first pastor of St. Bridget’s Church, provided some context for the time. Published December 17, 1918 in The Indianapolis News, the funeral notice stated that “Father Curran’s greatest and most lifelong ambition was to improve the condition of people of color among whom he was considered a patriarch and was widely known for his benevolence. He created Indiana’s only school for Catholic children of color, now known as St. Anne’s School on Fayette and Pratt streets.

St. Ann’s School closed in 1919. At this time, the students transferred to St. Rita Roman Catholic School (hereinafter referred to as Saint Rita School) at 1816 N. Arsenal Ave. This school was founded as part of the new Roman Catholic Parish of Sainte-Rita. According to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Saint Rita School was designed to be the only Roman Catholic elementary school for black children in Indianapolis.

The building that housed St. Ann’s School then became St. Bridget’s Parish Hall and was used for all parish activities. Years later, the structure was used as the DePaul Center, a youth center for black children. The DePaul Center was opened on June 24, 1945. This building was eventually demolished and the land is now used today as a playground for the St. Mary Child Center.

The next editions of What’s In A Name, Indy? will provide additional details on the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the lives of black people living in Indianapolis.

Do you have questions about the communities of Indianapolis? A street name? A landmark? Your questions can be used in a future news column. Contact Richard McDonough at [email protected].

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tzaneen in Limpopo says a miracle recognized by the church must occur to reach the final step to canonize and declare Blessed Benedict Daswa a saint.

Monday September 13 marks the sixth anniversary of his beatification to become the first martyr of the Catholic Church in Southern Africa.

This opened the way for the Pope to canonize him and declare him a saint.

Daswa, a devout Catholic, was beaten to death by villagers near Thohoyandou because of his opposition to witchcraft in 1990.

The promoter of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tzaneen, Sister Tshifhiwa Munzhedzi, says there are few ways to recognize a person in order to become a saint.

“We have many ways of recognizing that a person becomes a saint. Martyrdom is what we use to make him a saint. Martyrdom is already recognized that it has occurred. It only remains for him to be recognized as a saint. However, for this to happen, we need a miracle recognized by the church, ”says Sister Munzhedzi.

Sister Munzhedzi says they will start to develop land in Tshitanini where they will build a shrine.

“Next month we will start building the wall around the square. We are already starting to move with Tshitanini himself. We have some money. Originally, the project was estimated at R 67 million, ”says Sister Munzhedzi.

Daswa was stoned to death in 1990 for his Catholic beliefs. He refused to pay money to pay for a traditional doctor. Identify a person the community suspected of practicing witchcraft.

Below, an archived video of the beatification of Blessed Benedict Daswa:

It goes without saying that there are many beautiful churches in the world. Religious fervor inspires the creation of man-made wonders like nothing else. It really takes a special church to stand out as particularly magnificent. We have a historic church right here in West Virginia that is absolutely breathtaking. St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church has been around for centuries and between its magnificent architecture and unprecedented location, we think you will agree that it is one of the most beautiful places of worship in the state.

In these uncertain times, keep safety in mind and consider adding destinations to your list of destinations to visit at a later date.

For more information on the history of this beautiful place, check out this website from the University of Illinois to the Urbana-Champaign Department of Anthropology.

Have you attended a service at this beautiful church in West Virginia? Share your experiences in the comments!

BUFFALO, NY (WIVB) – A Riverside church celebrated its 110th anniversary on Sunday and was visited by the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Bishop Michael William Fisher visited All Saints Roman Catholic Church in the Riverside neighborhood of Buffalo and he brought with him a message of hope.

“I hope to bring a message of hope and we always find it in the gospel in the miracles of our Lord. We find out he heals a deaf man, and that’s what we’re supposed to do. This is the goal of our ministry: healing, ”said Bishop Michael William Fisher of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Daniel Devine, church member and administrator told us, “I love this man. He is very pastoral, he cares about the little people. I think his heart is with the parishes.

The church is also celebrating its 110 years.

“We are celebrating 110 years here at All Saints and we hope more than 110 more will come,” said Bishop Fisher.

“The parish was founded in 1911, it was just meadows and empty spaces here at the time. The church burned down two years later so they built the school. They had Mass at school until the 1930s, ”added the pastor of All Saints’ Day, the Reverend Angelo Chimera.

One thing that makes the church special is that for over a century they have maintained a diverse church congregation.

“The parish has always been a mixed parish. This is why it is called All Saints because there were Hungarians, Poles, Germans and Italians. They didn’t want to offend anyone so they called it All Saints Church. Now we’re back with a mix of people. We have Congolese here, Burmese, Rwandans and so on, ”Chimera said.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, The Associated Press

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) – Former Roman Catholic cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once powerful American prelate who was kicked out of the priesthood for sexual abuse, pleaded not guilty on Friday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy at a reception of married in Massachusetts almost 50 years ago.

McCarrick, 91, wore a mask and walked into Dedham District Court in suburban Boston, bent over a walker. “Shame on you!” shouted a protester.

He did not speak at the hearing, in which the court pleaded not guilty on his behalf, set the bond at $ 5,000 and ordered him to stay away from the victim and n ” have no contact with minors.

McCarrick is the only current or former American Catholic cardinal to have ever been charged with child sex crimes.

McCarrick’s attorney, Katherine Zimmerl, later said they “looked forward to responding to the allegations in court” and would have no further immediate comment.

The next hearing was set for October 28.

McCarrick, who now lives in Dittmer, Missouri, faces three counts of indecent assault and assault and battery on a person over the age of 14, according to court documents. He can still face charges in this case because he was not a resident of Massachusetts and had left the state, stopping the statute of limitations.

McCarrick’s downfall began in 2017 when a former altar boy showed up to report the priest groped him as a teenager in New York City. The following year, the Archdiocese of New York announced that McCarrick had been removed from office after finding the allegation “credible and valid,” and two New Jersey dioceses revealed they had settled misconduct complaints sexual against him in the past involving adults.

Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick in 2019 after a Vatican investigation determined he had sexually assaulted minors, as well as adults.

A two-year internal investigation into McCarrick found three decades of bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed reports of sexual misconduct. Correspondence showed that they repeatedly dismissed the information as rumor and excused it as “recklessness.”

The results of the investigation released last year placed much of the blame on Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick Archbishop of Washington, DC, although he commissioned an investigation which confirmed that McCarrick had lying with seminarians.

In the Massachusetts case, authorities began investigating McCarrick after the accuser’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, sent a letter to the district attorney’s office alleging the abuse, court records show.

The man told authorities in an interview in January that McCarrick was close to his family when he was growing up and that the abuse started when he was a young boy.

The man said that at his brother’s wedding reception at Wellesley College in June 1974 – when he was 16 – McCarrick told him his father wanted him to have a conversation with McCarrick because the boy “Was mischievous at home and didn’t go to church.”

The man said they both went for a walk around campus and McCarrick groped him before returning to the party. The man said McCarrick also sexually assaulted him in a “locker room type closet” after they returned to the reception, authorities wrote in the documents.

The man told investigators that before leaving the room, McCarrick told him to “say three Our Fathers and one Hail Mary or it was one Our Father and three Hail Marys, so God could redeem from your sins, ”according to the report.

He also described other cases of sexual abuse by McCarrick over the years, including when the man was an adult, court records show. The Associated Press generally does not identify people who report sexual assault unless they agree to be publicly named.

Ordained a priest in New York in 1958, McCarrick rose through the ranks of the church despite a knowledge apparently common to the United States and Vatican leaders that “Uncle Ted,” as he was called, slept with seminarians.

• Following: Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick accused of participating in “sex ring” at beach house in retrial

The case against McCarrick and other Catholic clerics is particularly fierce in Boston, where the global priestly sexual abuse scandal was first exposed.

The Boston Globe Spotlight team report helped open the scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002. The report revealed how dozens of priests in the Archdiocese had assaulted and raped children for decades while the Senior church officials covered him up and chased abusive priests from parish to parish.

A Globe feature film, “Spotlight,” won the 2016 Oscar for Best Picture.

McCarrick became one of the most visible Catholic Church officials in the United States and even served as a spokesperson for other American bishops when they adopted a “zero tolerance” policy against sexually-oriented priests. abusive in 2002.

Cardinal George Pell was convicted of sexual abuse in his native Australia, but his conviction was eventually overturned. And French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was found guilty but later acquitted of the charges he covered for a notorious pedophile priest.

• Following: Diocese sells Archbishop of NJ’s retirement home, with 2 swimming pools and elevator, for almost $ 1 million

MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) – A prominent Roman Catholic cardinal who avoided COVID-19 vaccine said he would begin rehabilitation soon after contract the coronavirus and spend days on a ventilator.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, 73, one of the church’s most vocal conservatives and a vaccine skeptic, tweeted on Aug. 10 that he had contracted the virus. He was sedated and placed on a ventilator in an undisclosed hospital. His staff tweeted on August 21 that he had been removed the ventilator and transferred from intensive care to a regular room.

Burke tweeted a letter on Saturday in which he thanked God for bringing him “to this point of healing and recovery.” He said he was staying in the hospital and could not respond to individual supporters because he was about to begin “intensive rehabilitation” and would be going through a “prolonged recovery period”.

“In your charity, I know you will understand this circumstance and accept that I must preserve my energy so that I can recover my health and strength,” Burke wrote. “Since Divine Providence has governed that I remain hospitalized for the present, I now reaffirm this same episcopal conviction: suffering, united with the suffering of Jesus Christ, is truly effective in His divine plan for our salvation when it is accepted. willingly and wholeheartedly.

He did not specify his condition or what the rehabilitation will entail.

Burke was bishop in the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin before becoming Archbishop of St. Louis. He left St. Louis in 2008 to oversee the Supreme Court of the Vatican, becoming the first American to hold that position.

He has built a reputation as an outspoken conservative. He gained attention in 2004 when he said he would not give Holy Communion to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry because Kerry supports the right to abortion. In 2009, he berated the University of Notre Dame for its intention to give an honorary degree to then-President Barack Obama because Obama, too, supports the right to abortion.

Pope Francis brought Burke out of the Vatican courtroom in 2014 after Burke said the church was like a rudderless ship.

Burke has been on the attack against Francis ever since. He joined three other conservative cardinals in formally asking the Pope in 2016 to explain why he decided to let remarried Catholics receive Holy Communion.

Burke also warned people that governments were using fear of the pandemic to manipulate people. He spoke out against mandatory vaccinations in May 2020 and said some in society wanted to implant people with microchips. He said the best weapon to fight the virus is Jesus Christ.

“Parishioners are free to assert their right to declare conscientious objections on medical or moral grounds if they wish,” Thomas said.

Las Vegas is in Clark County, where the Southern Nevada Health District on Wednesday reported that the county had surpassed 300,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

Controversy over fetal cell lines

Discussion of the church’s position on vaccines began early in the distribution and focused on the use of fetal cell lines in research and production.

The month before receiving a vaccine in January, Pope Francis said that “the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in vaccine production are derived.”

But in March, some Catholic bishops raised concerns about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and urged members to source another vaccine when available.

Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna have used cell lines from fetal tissue to test their vaccines, but are not used in the manufacture or production of vaccines, while fetal cell lines have been used in “development, confirmation and the production “of Johnson & Johnson, according to Dr. James Lawler. , an infectious disease expert at Nebraska Medicine.

These cells are thousands of generations removed from the original fetal tissue, Lawler said.

Johnson & Johnson used the fetal cell line because it is “a well-researched industry standard for the safe and reliable production of viral vector vaccines,” Lawler said.

(CNN) – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas will not issue letters of exemption for the Covid-19 vaccine for religious reasons, the diocese told pastors on Monday.

After “careful and praying consideration” based on reports from pastors in the diocese that they have received a small amount of such requests, Bishop George Leo Thomas said he believed the issuance of vaccine exemptions would contradict the claims. directives from Pope Francis, according to a communication obtained by CNN.

“Over the past few months, our Holy Father Pope Francis has made it clear that the various forms of Covid vaccines are morally acceptable, urging Catholics around the world to get vaccinated, not just for their own safety and well-being. , but also for concern for the weak and vulnerable among us, ”said the bishop.

The announcement comes as much of the nation is debating vaccine mandates. Health experts say warrants are essential to protect people enough to curb the spread of the virus, while some officials and segments of the population argue that such warrants infringe on personal freedom.

Some religious groups joined in the debate, as they said the Covid-19 restrictions and vaccination warrants violate their religious expression.

Despite the first vaccine controversies in the Catholic Church at the start of the pandemic, Pope Francis said in a public service announcement published on August 18 that “receiving the vaccines authorized by the respective authorities is an act of love. And helping the majority of people to do it is an act of love – love for oneself, love for our families and friends, and love for all people. “

Thomas also noted the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “asserted moral acceptability vaccines against Covid. “

“Parishioners are free to assert their right to declare conscientious objections on medical or moral grounds if they wish,” Thomas said.

Las Vegas is in Clark County, where the Southern Nevada Health District on Wednesday reported that the county had surpassed 300,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

Controversy over fetal cell lines

Discussion of the church’s position on vaccines began early in the distribution and focused on the use of fetal cell lines in research and production.

The month before receiving a vaccine in January, Pope Francis said that “the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in vaccine production are derived.”

But in March, some Catholic bishops raised concerns about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and urged members to source another vaccine when available.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as at least 6 other dioceses across the country have issued statements expressing “moral concerns” about the shooting due to its use of laboratory-grown cells descended from cells taken in the 1980s from the tissues of aborted fetuses.

Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna have used cell lines from fetal tissue to test their vaccines, but are not used in the manufacture or production of vaccines, while fetal cell lines have been used in “development, confirmation and the production “of Johnson & Johnson, according to Dr. James Lawler. , an infectious disease expert at Nebraska Medicine.

These cells are thousands of generations removed from the original fetal tissue, Lawler said.

Johnson & Johnson used the fetal cell line they used because it is “a well-researched industry standard for the safe and reliable production of viral vector vaccines,” Lawler said.

The-CNN-Wire

™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.