ABC's Good Morning America is coming to interview Bay City's All Saints principal

The following was posted recently on Bay City's All Saints Central Facebook page, following a story that appeared in Sundays edition of The Bay City Times about the schools Facebook savvy principal:

All Saints Central 

Good Morning America will be at ASC to film at 10am on Thur. Sept. 2nd. This summer I created an admin. profile and this ASC page to keep students, parents, and alumni aware of ASC happenings. While updating this page over the summer, I came across some negative posts by students. I sent private messages reminding these students that FB is public. That level of communication gained local press, and now GMA.

Read more about GMA coming to All Saints in The Bay City Times. 

Religious sisters hope to make ‘habit’ out of tonight’s block party at Cathedral

SAGINAW — When members of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma moved into the St. Mary Cathedral convent last summer, they made it a mission to get to know their neighbors. Tonight, they along with the Flag and Flower Community Group will share that welcoming spirit with the entire Cathedral community.

WHAT: An opportunity for residents to meet their neighbors

WHEN: 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. tonight

WHERE: Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption parking lot, 615 Hoyt Ave., Saginaw

The sisters hope many residents will come out for food, fun and an opportunity to get to know one another, and that the event will foster a greater sense of community in their new neighborhood.

Members of the media are welcome to attend tonight’s social gathering. To learn more about the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma log onto www.rsmofalma.org.

Gladwin’s Sacred Heart School closes, pastor promises vibrant parish life will continue

GLADWIN — Following the recommendation of the school board of trustees, finance council, pastoral council and local pastor, the Most Rev. Joseph R. Cistone, Bishop of Saginaw, announced his acceptance of a collective recommendation to close Sacred Heart School in Gladwin.

The recommendation and approval come following an August 19 enrollment report to the school’s board of trustees that showed only nine students registered for the 2010-2011 academic year. Previous financial projections show that a total enrollment of 15 students would have forced the school to increase tuition by $1,250 and raised the parish’s costs to more than $12,000 per student.

“In a January letter to Sacred Heart parishioners, a commitment was made by both the pastoral and finance councils that our Catholic school would be a school that we could afford,” said the Rev. John Cotter, who has served as pastor of Sacred Heart since 2006. “It is now obvious an affordable Catholic school in our community is not possible.”

The per pupil cost for the 2009-2010 school year — when 38 students were enrolled — was $8,700. The average tuition collected was $2,300 and the parish contribution was $6,400 per student.

“It is a sad day for any parish that has to close a school, but we can be proud of what our school has accomplished,” Father Cotter said. “This is now an opportunity to look forward and recommit ourselves to a solid religious education program for our Catholic students in grades K-12, evangelize our community and make the long overdue capital improvements needed at our parish.”

“We have seen a trend this year of long-standing schools being forced to close, and as a faith community we are united in prayer with the teachers, students, families and parishioners of Sacred Heart who are experiencing a sense of loss,” said the Rev. Robert Byrne, Vicar for Catholic Schools. “The time is now for all of us, at every level, to focus on supporting, strengthening and spreading the good news about Catholic schools. They are a blessing to our diocese and our communities and it is important for us to do everything we can to preserve them both now and in the future.”

Sacred Heart School in Gladwin opened its doors to students in 1918. It closed in 1932 during the Great Depression and reopened twenty years later in 1952. At its peak in 1967 an estimated 165 students were enrolled.

Diocese honors Mother Teresa through life-supporting endowment fund

Established in 2005, the Mother Teresa Endowment Fund 
has helped more than 650 struggling families.

SAGINAW — On what would have been the 100th birthday of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw reminds individuals or couples facing financial hardships that resources are available for them as they await the birth of a child and/or during the initial period following the child’s birth.

The Mother Teresa Endowment Fund assists with costs not covered by other resources, such as prenatal clinic costs, hospital and birthing expenses not covered by insurance or Medicaid, temporary rent, phone, and utility payments for the birth mother while she is out of work, maternity clothes, cribs, car seats and other basic needs.

The fund is named in honor of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the foundress of the Missionaries of Charity religious community, who is known around the world for her efforts to reach out to the poorest of the poor. Her work now continues through thousands of religious sisters who joined the Missionaries of Charity and serve throughout the world.

Mother Teresa and those who have followed her example promote life through compassionate caring for the poor, especially the sick and children.

The Mother Teresa Endowment Fund is supported through the generous gifts of many individuals. The dollars contributed are invested and the interest generated provides revenue for the assistance.

Donations to the Mother Teresa Endowment Fund are welcomed at any time and are tax-deductible. They may be sent to the Respect Life Office. The financial resources in the fund are monitored, managed and dispersed through the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw.

Applications for assistance may be obtained from the Respect Life Office at the Diocesan Center, 5800 Weiss St., in Saginaw, or by calling (989) 754-0091.

Bishops Welcome Ruling Against Embryonic Stem Cell Funding, Urge Government to Pursue Ethical Stem Cell Research

WASHINGTON — Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, welcomed the federal court injunction against the Obama administration’s funding of human embryonic stem cell research, calling the ruling a “victory for common sense and sound medical ethics.”  

He said this ruling also vindicates the bishops’ reading of the Dickey amendment, the amendment approved by Congress since 1996, which prevents federal funding of research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed.

“I hope this court decision will encourage our government to renew and expand its commitment to ethically sound avenues of stem cell research,” Cardinal DiNardo added. “These avenues are showing far more promise than destructive human embryo research in serving the needs of suffering patients.”

The full statement follows: 

The preliminary injunction against the Obama administration’s funding of human embryonic stem cell research is a welcome victory for common sense and sound medical ethics.  It also vindicates a reading of Congress’s statutory language on embryo research that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has defended for more than a decade.

Each year since 1996, Congress has approved the Dickey amendment to forbid funding any “research in which” human embryos are harmed or destroyed.  This should ensure that taxpayers are not forced to fund a research project when pursuing that project requires the destruction of human life at its earliest stage.  However, beginning with a legal memo commissioned by the Clinton administration in January 1999, this law has been distorted and narrowed to allow federal funding of research that directly relies on such destruction.  As the bishops’ conference said in congressional testimony in 1999, “a mere bookkeeping distinction between funds used to destroy the embryo and funds used to work with the resultant cells is not sufficient” to comply with the law.  In the health care reform debate, as well, we have pointed out that an executive order by itself cannot change the meaning of a law passed by Congress, and that the longstanding policy against funding health plans that cover abortion is not satisfied, but circumvented, by a bookkeeping distinction that merely segregates accounts within such plans.

A task of good government is to use its funding power to direct resources where they will best serve and respect human life, not to find new ways to evade this responsibility. I hope this court decision will encourage our government to renew and expand its commitment to ethically sound avenues of stem cell research. These avenues are showing far more promise than destructive human embryo research in serving the needs of suffering patients 

Area soup kitchens and food pantries get needed boost during busy summer months

SAGINAW —As part of the Knights of Columbus “Food for Families” program across the United States and Canada, $1 million is being donated to help feed the hungry. Soup kitchens and food pantries across Michigan are the recipients of $68, 000 and some of that money is already benefiting the local community.

On Thursday, Bishop Joseph R. Cistone accepted a $4,063 check on behalf of the Diocese of Saginaw. The check was presented to Bishop Cistone by the Knights of Columbus at the East Side Soup Kitchen in Saginaw. Bishop Cistone, in turn, shared that money with soup kitchens and food pantries across the 11 county diocese.

Donations were distributed to the following organizations:

• Isabella Community Soup Kitchen, Mt. Pleasant
• Resurrection of the Lord Parish Food Pantry, Standish
• Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network, Midland
• Bay County Emergency Food Pantry Network, Bay City
• Office of Human Services, St. Louis
• East Side Soup Kitchen’s After-school Program, Saginaw
• Sacred Heart Parish Food Pantry, Bad Axe
• Sacred Heart Parish Food Pantry, Caro

Representatives from the above organizations were on hand Thursday for the check presentation and at that time also received individual checks for their organizations. The East Side Soup Kitchen’s Director, Pam Cole, said the money could not have come at a better time.

“Many children, who receive breakfast and lunch during the school year, lose two meals during the summer months,” Cole said. “Just last Friday we served 512 adults and children.”

According to Cole, more donations come in during the winter months, but summer is actually the busiest time of year. The number of meals served at the East Side Soup Kitchen has gone up each year since 2001 and it is a similar story at soup kitchens and food pantries across the Diocese of Saginaw.

Bishop Cistone took the opportunity while he was at the East Side Soup Kitchen to thank the Knights of Columbus for its generous support and also thanked the employees and volunteers who work to feed the hungry.

While he was at the soup kitchen, Bishop Cistone worked a lunch-shift on the serving line. He greeted and served food to adults, teens and children who were there for a meal.

“It was a very spiritual experience,” Bishop Cistone said. “You look into the eyes of the people who are there — people of all ages and walks of life — and you just know that you are meeting Christ.”

• Click here to view more photos.

U.S. Bishops' Pro-Life Chair Urges Support for Law to Prevent Federal Funding of Abortion

WASHINGTON — Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called on members of the House of Representatives to support the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” (H.R. 5939), introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) at the end of July.

He called for support in an August 20 letter. The bill already has 166 co-sponsors including 20 Democratic members. The text of the letter can be found at www.usccb.org/prolife/DiNardo-HR5939.pdf.

“H.R. 5939 will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 35 years: The federal government should not use taxpayers’ money to support and promote elective abortion,” Cardinal DiNardo said. “Even public officials who take a ‘pro-choice’ stand on abortion, and courts that have insisted on the validity of a constitutional ‘right’ to abortion, have agreed that the government can validly use its funding power to encourage childbirth over abortion.”

He said some people assume this position already is fully reflected in U.S. law, and noted, for example, that “some wrongly argued during the recent debate on health care reform that there was no need for restrictions on abortion funding in the new health legislation, because this matter had already been settled by the Hyde amendment.”

However, he noted, the Hyde amendment, which precludes money for elective abortions and health plans that provide them, is only a rider to the annual Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill. It has been maintained essentially intact by Congress over the last 35 years, but it only governs funds appropriated under that particular act.

Federal funds are prevented now from funding abortion by riders to various other appropriations bills as well as by provisions incorporated into specific authorizing legislation for the Department of Defense, Children’s Health Insurance Program, foreign assistance, and so on. Gaps or loopholes in these protections have also been discovered at various times, requiring Congress to address them individually.

Thus, “while Congress’s policy has been remarkably consistent for decades, implementation of that policy in practice has been piecemeal and sometimes sadly inadequate,” Cardinal DiNardo said.

H.R. 5939 would also codify the Hyde/Weldon amendment that has been part of the section containing the Hyde amendment in annual Labor/HHS appropriations bills since 2004. Hyde/Weldon has ensured that federal agencies and state and local governments that receive federal funds do not discriminate against health care providers because they do not perform or provide abortions.

“It is long overdue for this policy, as well, to be given a more secure legislative status,’’ Cardinal DiNardo said. “No hospital, doctor or nurse should be forced to stop providing much-needed legitimate health care because they cannot in conscience participate in destroying a developing human life.”