Vouchers, immigration among issues for Catholic Day on the Hill By Dan McWilliams
School vouchers were a popular subject in meetings Bishop Richard F. Stika and Memphis Bishop J. Terry Steib, SVD, had with Gov. Bill Haslam and legislators during the 17th annual Catholic Day on the Hill in Nashville. Catholic Day on the Hill offers a chance for the faithful to meet with their legislators and advocate on issues important to the Church. “I always look forward to Catholic Day on the Hill,” Bishop Stika said. “Every year the issues are a little different. This year we focused a lot on the school-voucher program that’s proposed by the governor as well as many different other educational opportunities, and then we brought up immigration and working with the people in need and the death penalty.” School vouchers came up in conversations between the bishops and the governor, Speaker of the House Beth Harwell, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, and Sen. Dolores Gresham, the Senate Education Committee chair. Under the governor’s plan, school vouchers would allow parents of students in under-performing public schools to use tax dollars to enroll their children in non-public schools. “Officially, we think they’re a very positive step,” Bishop Stika said of
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DAN MCWILLIAMS
Bishop Stika, Bishop Steib meet with Gov. Haslam, legislators on issues affecting state’s Catholics
Church and state Bishop Richard F. Stika, left, Gov. Bill Haslam, center, and Bishop J. Terry Steib, SVD, meet during Catholic Day on the Hill.
school vouchers. “The Catholic Church has a long history of education. We founded the first universities and such.
Here in East Tennessee, I think it can have a profound impact on so many.” Bishop David R. Choby of Nashville
was scheduled to attend the Feb. 18 Day on the Hill but was delayed on a trip out of town. Paul Simoneau, director of the Diocese of Knoxville Office of Justice and Peace, attended the legislative meetings, as did Sister Mary Marta Abbott, RSM, diocesan superintendent of Catholic Schools, and Sister Mary Christine Cremin, RSM, executive director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. Also present was Mary Catherine Willard of Immaculate Conception Parish in Knoxville, the founder of Catholic Day on the Hill. “It’s always a great opportunity to be able to interact with our elected officials, whose very role is to safeguard and protect and help promote the dignity of those whose care they’re entrusted to, who they represent in the state government,” Mr. Simoneau said. “It’s a process that we must support and respect to the degree that we interact with them—they are able to be our voice of concerns as well.” The governor asked the Catholic group for papers stating the Church’s position on the death penalty and on immigration. Regarding the death penalty, Bishop Stika shared with the governor the account of Pope John Paul II’s
International priests providing true blessings to the diocese By Lourdes Garza erhaps we might remember how, since our childhood, we have been asked to fund the work of missionaries around the world. These missionaries, priests and religious brothers and sisters, have taken the Good News to all corners of the world for many centuries. We now see the result of their missionary effort: the southern hemisphere of the world is now re-evangelizing the northern hemisphere. Our diocese is currently blessed
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with more than a dozen foreign priests (and religious brothers and sisters) coming from India, Philippines, Mexico, Columbia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ireland, Ghana, Tanzania, Vietnam and Uganda. And now, we also have a new seminarian from Poland. Speaking about the priests, we might note that many of them are not only bilingual (native language and English), but rather, they are fluent in three or four languages–a cultural richness for which we are most thankful to God. But when they arrive in the
United States, they might experience a culture shock which they are challenged overcome in order to begin their ministry work. The pastoral needs of our diocese require, in some instances, that the foreign priests be assigned to parishes that include Spanish-speaking parishioners and it makes it necessary for them to learn basic Spanish as well. I think that at times, we might overlook their effort in ministering to Hispanics or that we might sometimes take it for granted, as though it is a requirement that
The Diocese of Knoxville Living our Roman Catholic faith in East Tennessee
must be met by them. In addition, there might be many cultural differences between them and the parishioners. These differences need to be looked at closely as a means of collaboration and not as a means of division. Who would have thought that when the North American and European missionaries traveled to faraway lands to establish the missions, the children would answer the call to the priesthood and religious life? Those same children benefiting from their ministry Priests continued on page 7 dioknox.org