Archive for the ‘Parishes’ Category

Jesuit Father Shay Auerbach, pastor of Sacred Heart in Richmond, Va., with a 90 percent Hispanic population, is part of an effort to help Richmond area parishes increase the number of Hispanic students in local Catholic schools.

“With very few exceptions, Catholic schools in Latin America are almost exclusively for the wealthy,” he said, causing many Hispanics to think of Catholic schools as only for the elite.

“It doesn’t even enter into their mindset that Catholic schools are a possibility,” Fr. Auerbach said.

The Segura Initiative, named after Father Juan Baptista Segura, a Spanish Jesuit missionary priest who was martyred in Virginia in 1571, includes Auerbach and two other pastors from Richmond parishes with large Hispanic populations, as well as parishioners from each parish. They focus on three areas of concern: marketing and enrollment, fundraising and development, and cultural responsiveness.

Auerbach said he feels that Catholic schools face three challenges.

“One is to get the message out that we welcome Hispanic students,” he said. “Two, they’ve got to help Hispanics overcome the idea that Catholic schools are not for them, and three, financial assistance is needed.”

For more on Auerbach’s work with the initiative, read the full story at The Catholic Virginian.

Jesuit Father Tom Reese, director of the Public Policy Program at Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C., was recently a guest on Interfaith Voices, a religious news magazine on public radio.

The episode on religion and the recession explored how the clergy in the country are handling it: what they are preaching to congregations where many are losing their jobs and their homes.

Fr. Reese tells host Maureen Fiedler, “We have to reach out and remind people of God’s compassion and love. Because when you lose your job, you lose your sense of value. You feel powerless … Religious communities have to reach out to these people and say ‘No, you are still important, you are valued and loved by God.’”

You can listen to the audio broadcast below or by going to Interfaith Radio’s website.

On August 29, 2005, New Orleans experienced one of the worse natural disasters in U.S. history. While the city escaped a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, the rising waters breached the levees that surround the city, leaving 80 percent of New Orleans under water. Five years later, New Orleans is a city rebuilding.

There has been a strong Jesuit presence in New Orleans from the days of the city’s founding over 300 years ago. The Jesuits have been in New Orleans in times of crisis like typhoid and yellow fever outbreaks at the turn of the 19th century and when the city flooded previously in the 1920s. Jesuit works like Good Shepherd Nativity School, which provides educational opportunities to disadvantaged children in the city, and Café Reconcile, a youth training program that provides on the job training in its restaurant, continue to help the city look toward a vibrant future. Schools like Loyola University and Jesuit High School continue to provide top notch education opportunities, while the Harry Thompson Center, a day shelter for the city’s homeless, reach out to the city’s most vulnerable. Today, the Jesuits continue to serve the spiritual needs of people of New Orleans and will continue be there for the city as it rebuilds and recovers.

National Jesuit News highlights the outreach and the dedication of the New Orleans Jesuits in the video piece below and provides a comprehensive overview of the Jesuit works in New Orleans five years after Katrina in the article following the video below.

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Attempts to arrest an alleged drug kingpin in Kingston, Jamaica turned into urban warfare that has left dozens dead in Tivoli Gardens, the Kingston neighborhood that has been under siege for days as the security forces battle heavily-armed gangsters defending their leader, Christopher Coke, known as Dudus.

In the midst of this violence sits St. Anne’s parish, as well as the Jesuits and the schools that they oversee. Canadian Jesuit Father Peter McIsaac, Regional Superior of the Jesuits in Jamaica, recently sent this letter to the New England Province of the Society of Jesus. Since 1929, the New England Jesuits have overseen the Jamaica Mission for the Society.

Below is a message received by the New England Province of the Society of Jesus from Jesuit Father Peter McIsaac, Regional Superior, Jamaica regarding the Jesuits in Jamaica:

Dear brothers,

Many thanks for your concern and prayers for the Jesuits in Jamaica, and for the stability of the country at this time.

Over the past few months tensions have escalated between inner city “garrison” communities, particularly those in West Kingston (Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town), and the Jamaican government over the U.S. request for the extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, one of the most powerful criminal “dons” in Jamaica, a man with strong links to crime in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

After a political crisis over a week ago in which the Prime Minister apologized for his exposed connection to a legal contract intended to protect the West Kingston strongman, the extradition papers were signed. The network of Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town gunmen in reaction erected road blocks and barricaded the two communities in an effort to frustrate the execution of the warrant for the arrest of Coke.

On Tuesday, just a short distance from St. Anne’s Church and schools, an army vehicle that attempted to clear a roadblock was assaulted by gunman and made a retreat. The roadblocks were intensified by the local gunmen, and by Saturday morning there was no road access to the two communities (in which St. Anne’s is located). The St. Anne’s Infant, Primary and High Schools were closed Thursday and Friday.

On Sunday, the police attempted a preliminary incursion into the communities, but were repelled, and in retaliation the Hannah Town Police Station (about two hundred meters from the Church) was overtaken and burned. Two other police stations were attacked and bombed. The Prime Minister announced a limited state of emergency.

On Monday, May 24, the army began their offensive. The gun battles continued for eight hours, and it seems that they have successfully recaptured the communities. One soldier and two policeman have been killed, and many more have been injured. There is no official count of the civilian dead (including the gunmen), but given the length and intensity of the gun battles, it seems as though the casualties will be very high. Gun battles were often accompanied by the bomb explosions.

This morning, the soldiers are out in full force, and going from corner to corner. There is sporadic gun fire, and no one is permitted on the road.

Peter McIsaac and John Sullivan have been at St. Anne’s Rectory throughout the conflict, and remain confined to the house, but are fine. Chris Llanos and John O’Brien are not far away on St. George’s College at the novitiate community, and are also fine. We thank you for your continued prayers for peace in West Kingston, and for the safety of our Jesuits here.

Jesuit Father Joseph Koterski is an associate professor of philosophy,  Jesuit Father Claudio Burgaleta is an assistant professor of theology and Jesuit Father Edward Dowling is a professor of economics.

Yet, like all of Fordham’s Jesuits, first and foremost they are Catholic priests. They are ordained to celebrate Mass in any parish in the New York Archdiocese and to administer sacraments that go with the title: marriages, penance, last rites, Holy Eucharist and more.

That is why, when calls for assistance come from surrounding Bronx neighborhoods and beyond, Fordham’s Jesuits are answering them.

Some 20 of Fordham’s Jesuit priests regularly celebrate Masses in parish churches and other religious communities off campus. The jobs are rarely assigned tasks; they are, many of them say, tasks of the heart, and a privilege that keeps them connected to the world beyond the leafy confines of academia.

“We are priests first of all, and this is what our mission is,” said Father Koterski. “We can be of great support to our fellow priests and to our dioceses. And people in the pews like a little variety in their sermons. The learning and spirituality that the Jesuits bring can be valuable.”

Read more about how the 60 members of Fordham’s Jesuit communities are assisting local parishes near the Fordham campus in the Bronx by going here.