Archdiocese's Dayton Offices to MoveIn case you are not familiar with the new location, here is a map.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 25, 2010
Dayton administrative offices of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati are moving to newly purchased quarters around the end of March, ensuring their long-term presence in Dayton.
“The acquisition of this building in the city of Dayton makes us owners instead of renters,” said the Most Reverend Dennis M. Schnurr, Archbishop of Cincinnati. “This demonstrates our long-term commitment to the Miami Valley. Our new quarters are handicapped-accessible, energy-efficient and easily reached from I-75.
“Our staff supports the ministries of more than 50 local parishes in the region, and this permanent facility will help us more effectively deliver services to our parishes.”
For about 35 years, Dayton offices of the Archdiocese have rented space at the former Holy Trinity School building at 266 Bainbridge Street. Affected by the move are 23 employees of the Offices of Catholic Schools, Evangelization and Catechesis, Catholic Social Action, Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Family Life and The Catholic Telegraph, the Catholic Education Collaborative, and HealthSmart Protective Services.
The Archdiocese bought the former State Farm Building at 1436 Needmore Road for a purchase price of $825,000, including the building, acreage, and office furniture and fixtures. The purchase, which closed today, comes after more than a year of exploring other options, including the possibility of renovating existing Church properties.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati is the 26th largest Catholic diocese in the country, with almost 500,000 Catholics, and has the eighth largest network of Catholic schools in terms of enrollment. The 19-county territory includes 218 parishes and 115 Catholic primary and secondary schools.
The Congregation of Holy Cross has been serving the poor in Haiti for more than 60 years. Holy Cross missionaries from Canada first came to Haiti in 1944 to direct an existing secondary school in Cap Haitien. That initial mission, now called College Notre-Dame, sparked the establishment of other Holy Cross educational, social, and parochial ministries throughout Haiti, now organized as the Province of Notre-Dame du Perpetual Secours, with 70 religious members, including two Holy Cross bishops.The Holy Cross school and seminary in Haiti were completely destroyed. Worse still, one of the seminarians was killed.
Early Friday morning, Holy Cross leaders reported that massive damage almost completely destroyed the provincial house and the Congregation’s school, Ensemble Scolaire Basile Moreau, which opened in 1989 to serve the poor in Port-au-Prince. In addition, a seminarian who taught at the Congregation’s high school in northern Haiti was killed in the collapse of a building at the University Quisqueya.Below is a video of the damage at Quisqueya University.
"My father loved medicine very much, which was the perplexing thing for me," Father Thesing said. "He loved helping people and listening to their stories; that’s what made him a very good doctor. A lot of what he did was what a minister is to do."
"When I was in high school, he said, ‘You should go into medicine. You can do both.’ He handed me articles of missionaries doing both. After he was ordained a deacon, I said I won the argument."
Molly Bruggeman, daughter of Michael (ND 1981) and Elizabeth Bruggeman (SMC 1982), just signed a Letter of Intent to attend Notre Dame on a crew team scholarship. Molly is a senior at Chaminade-Julienne Catholic High School and has been rowing for the Dayton Boat Club and Coach Mike Miles.
I schedule appointments and take clients through the baby pantry. I assist in the parenting classes and provide childcare while the parents attend class. I am working to update the database for our abstinence brochures that we sell. I am also working to acquire email addresses of our constituents for our new electronic update system. I am in charge of putting together the binders for the parenting class. I have been helping to coordinate and manage volunteers that come in to help, and I am also just beginning a marketing project to contact past clients and recipients of certain grants throughout the country. There is never a dull moment!Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the club by paying your dues, buying a raffle ticket, or making a donation. Your support provides a direct benefit to students like Kelly and to the Life Resource Centre.
Well, that’s definitely going to be the highlight. I’d have to say there are two things that I’m really looking forward to. One is just going out the hatch especially for the first time and just looking outside, being outside in my own spacesuit, you know, kind of my own little satellite there, and looking out into space through that visor, no windows; looking down at the Earth, watching it pass by, looking at the colors, looking out into space, seeing the stars. But just being outside of a vehicle traveling around the world, hanging out there in space, I think that’s just going to be fascinating and I think it’s something that obviously not a lot of people get to do. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. The other thing I’m really looking forward to is, once I’m out the door, translating over to the Hubble Space Telescope and, and grabbing a hold of it. I’ve, I’ve looked up from my driveway and watched the Hubble go overhead — you can see it, it’s a, a bright light on a clear night — and I’ve just imagined myself actually being up there and, and holding on to that thing as it’s, as it’s speeding around the world. I think that’s going to be pretty cool. And then once I get over that, I’m going to pull out my power tool, I’m going to undo a couple bolts, and we’re actually going to open up the doors to Hubble and we’re going to crawl inside and actually get to work on the telescope from the inside. I think that’s going to be pretty exciting.
Given the high level of interest and discussion around Notre Dame’s Commencement, we have prepared a highlights video of the speeches given earlier today. We invite you to view the highlights video.
“At the 164th Commencement The May Exercises
The University of Notre Dame Confers the degree of
Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on the 44th president of the United States, whose historic election opened a new era of hope in a country long divided by its history of slavery and racism. A community organizer who honed his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and the worker in the streets of Chicago, he now organizes a larger community, bringing to the world stage a renewed American dedication to diplomacy and dialogue with all nations and religions committed to human rights and the global common good. Through his willingness to engage with those who disagree with him and encourage people of faith to bring their beliefs to the public debate, he is inspiring this nation to heal its divisions of religion, culture, race and politics in the audacious hope for a brighter tomorrow.
On Barack H. Obama, Washington, District of Columbia”
May 11, 2009
Dear Members of the Notre Dame Graduating Class of 2009:
This Sunday, as you receive your degrees at Commencement, your joy – and that of your families – will be shared by the faculty, staff, and administration of the University. We have had the privilege of laboring with each of you to inquire and discover, to teach and to learn, and we will send you off with affectionate and fond hopes for the future.
For those of you who are undergraduates, I feel a special kinship. You arrived in your dorm rooms as I arrived in the President’s Office. You have learned much; I may have learned more. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to learn with you, come to know you, and to serve you during our time together at Notre Dame. During your years here we have endeavored to train you in the various disciplines and urged you to ask the larger questions – discussing not only the technical and practical but also the ethical and spiritual dimensions of pressing issues. I have been proud of you as you’ve grappled with intellectual, political, and spiritual questions. But I have never been more proud than I have been watching the way you’ve conducted yourselves over the past several weeks. The decision to invite President Obama to Notre Dame to receive an honorary degree and deliver the Commencement address has triggered debate. In many cases, the debate has grown heated, even between people who agree completely on Church teaching regarding the sanctity of human life, who agree completely that we should work for change – and differ only on how we should work for change.
Yet, there has been an extra dimension to your debate. You have discussed this issue with each other while being observed, interviewed, and evaluated by people who are interested in this story. You engaged each other with passion, intelligence and respect. And I saw no sign that your differences led to division. You inspire me. We need the wider society to be more like you; it is good that we are sending you into that world on Sunday.
I am saddened that many friends of Notre Dame have suggested that our invitation to President Obama indicates ambiguity in our position on matters of Catholic teaching. The University and I are unequivocally committed to the sanctity of human life and to its protection from conception to natural death.
Notre Dame has a long custom of conferring honorary degrees on the President of the United States. It has never been a political statement or an endorsement of policy. It is the University’s expression of respect for the leader of the nation and the Office of the President. In the Catholic tradition, our first allegiance is to God in Christ, yet we are called to respect, participate in, and contribute to the wider society. As St. Peter wrote (I Pt. 2:17), we should honor the leader who upholds the secular order. At the same time, and born of the same duty, a Catholic university has a special obligation not just to honor the leader but to engage the culture. Carrying out this role of the Catholic university has never been easy or without controversy. When I was an undergraduate at Notre Dame, Fr. Hesburgh spoke of the Catholic university as being both a lighthouse and a crossroads. As a lighthouse, we strive to stand apart and be different, illuminating issues with the moral and spiritual wisdom of the Catholic tradition. Yet, we must also be a crossroads through which pass people of many different perspectives, backgrounds, faiths, and cultures. At this crossroads, we must be a place where people of good will are received with charity, are able to speak, be heard, and engage in responsible and reasoned dialogue.
The President’s visit to Notre Dame can help lead to broader engagement on issues of importance to the country and of deep significance to Catholics. Ultimately, I hope that the conversations and the good will that come from this day will contribute to closer relations between Catholics and public officials who make decisions on matters of human life and human dignity.
There is much to admire and celebrate in the life and work of President Obama. His views and policies on immigration, expanding health care, alleviating poverty, and building peace through diplomacy have a deep resonance with Catholic social teaching. As the first African-American holder of this office, he has accelerated our country’s progress in overcoming the painful legacy of slavery and segregation. He is a remarkable figure in American history, and I look forward to welcoming him to Notre Dame.
As President Obama is our principal speaker, there will no doubt be much attention on your Commencement. Remember, though, that this day is your day. My fervent prayer is that May 17 will be a joyous day for you and your family. You are the ones we celebrate and applaud.
Congratulations, and may God bless you.
In Notre Dame,
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
Using a term reminiscent of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ("mostly harmless"), the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano declared the movie, Angels & Demons, to be "harmless entertainment" with many factual errors and little cultural value. It also called the movie "modest" and "rather innocuous." This is fitting justice to the movie's producers who wanted to stir up some controversy with the Church.Father Marco Fibbi, a spokesman for the Diocese of Rome, said: “Normally we read the script but this time it was not necessary. The name Dan Brown was enough.”
With this decision in mind, the recent review by the Vatican made sure to complement the "splendid photography" and the "magnificent" reproductions of the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. It seems the writer had a sense of humor, which is probably the best response here.
For those who want to be able to counter the factual errors and libels against the Church, the most complete explanation of the real truth is found in this article by Steven D. Greydanus.
For most Catholics, they'll probably just skip the movie. Why pay money that will just be used to support a future film that attacks the Catholic faith?
