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Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Week of September 27, 1999

Canadian and Foreign News Highlights

Bishops won't say 'sorry' to orphans:

The Quebec bishops' assembly has announced it will offer neither apologies nor compensation to the Duplessis "orphans," who claim their lives were ruined in Quebec's Catholic-run institutions of the 1940s and '50s. Bishop Pierre Morissette of Baie-Comeau, president of the assembly, said that to make an apology would be to accept a version of events that the Church does not accept. It would also constitute a "betrayal of the good works of those who dedicated their lives to the service of the poor," Morissette said.

Church workers rejoice in E. Timor:

When the first ship of UN peacekeeping troops arrived in Dili, East Timor, at 4:15 a.m., it wakened nuns and refugees residing at a Salesian convent. "It's earlier than we normally get up, but everybody in the house woke up smiling. Our lives have been saved," said Salesian Sister Marlene Bautista, the only U.S. nun who remained in Timor throughout several weeks of anarchy and violence. Priests and dozens of pastoral workers in East Timor have been killed in what Vatican officials described as deliberate attacks against the Catholic Church.

Retiring bishop wants to go back to Chicago:

After 17 years as bishop of Kamloops, Bishop Lawrence Sabatini plans to return to the simpler life. Earlier this month, Pope John Paul accepted the resignation of Sabatini, 69. Sabatini is retiring several years short of the age of 75, when bishops are required to submit their resignations to the pope. Instead of shepherding the diocese, he will go back to his roots in Chicago, where he hopes to become involved with counselling in a smaller parish.

Modern church design under fire from architect:

In a criticism of the current state of North American Catholic church architecture and art, architect Duncan Stroik has blamed the booklet Environment and Art in Catholic Worship as one of the culprits. The booklet, he said, "is for all intents and purposes a paean to modernist abstraction. . . . In an EACW church there is no complexity: There are no columns to sit next to, no shadows for a penitent to kneel in, no places for private devotion, no mystery and no images of the heavenly hosts.'' He said the 1978 booklet's "authority has been invoked to require theatre-shaped interiors, removal of tabernacles from sanctuaries, removal of religious imagery and a puritanical style."

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