Edith Stein called peacemakers' model
ADOPT·A·COP: Crystal Brown and Darren Moseley, students at Holy Cross School in New York, offer flowers to police officers Michelle DiGiansanti and Anthony Corio, who visited the school for a prayer service as part of students' "Adopt a Cop" program. (CNS photo)
Casey calls for leadership Continued from Page One Pope John Paul II drt:w that line." Casey referred to the story that Joseph Stalin, responding sarcastically to a suggestion that Pope Pius XII's views should be taken into account, asked, "How many divisions does the pope have?" Asking the same question was Timothy E. Wirth, the key U.S. State Department offtcial involved with the Cairo confer<~nce, and "he found out," Casey said. Archbishop Renato R. Martino, Vatican nuncio to th,e United Nations and head of the Vatican delegation at Cairo, had said the battle there was partly won in the United States because of the leadership of the U.S. cardinals and other U.S. Catholics. "But the battle is not the war," Casey added, appealing for continued backing. "We have more challenges ahead." Thomas V. Wykes Jr., executive director of the Catholic Campaign for America, told CNS his organization planned to sf:nd a delegation to the World Conference on Women in Beijing in September. During the dinner, Peter S. Lynch, noted for his success as a former investment manager with the Fidelity mutual funds, was honored as "Catholic American of the Year" and Virgil C. Dechant, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, received a "lifetime achievement" award. Mary Cunningham Agee, a Catholic campaign board member who made the prt:sentation to Lynch, commended his work in arranging for a full-page ad in The
New York Times defending the Vatican position at Cairo. The Washington-based Catholic Campaign for America was formed in 1991 and has about 14,000 members, Wykes said. He added about 430 $500-tickets were sold for the dinner.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John Paul II has praised Blessed Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism killed in a Nazi death camp, as a model for women peacemakers of today. Blessed Edith combined activities as a philosopher, social activist and contemplative in an exemplary effort to connect the demands of reason and faith, he said. The pope commented at one of a series of talks on Catholic women who have worked for peace in the church and in the world. He recalled that Blessed Edith, who became a Carmelite nun, was killed in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz death camp, like "many other victims of Nazi ferocity." She had faced the prospect of her deportation and death with an awareness of dying for her people, he said. "Her sacrifice was a cry of peace, and a service to peace," said the pope, who be:atified her in 1987 during a trip to West Germany. Less-known is Blessed Edith's work on behalf of women's promotion befon: her arrest by Nazi soldiers, he said. In the years preceding her entering the convent, she researched, wrote and held conferences on women's topics. She was concerned that women's rights be fully recognized, the pope said. This induded the woman's
THE ANCHOR-Diocese of Fall River-Fri.; Mar. 3, 1995
vocation as wife and mother, as well as her roles in cultural and social life. She herself was considered an intellectual, particularly for her efforts to apply contemporary philosophy to the search for deeper spiritual meaning in life, he said. Blessed Edith's conversion at the age of 30 was reached after a painful personal search and "did not signify the refusal of her cultural and religious roots," he said. Instead, Christ was helping her to "read the history of her people in a deeper way," he said. The pope ended his talk with a call for closer relationships among all believers, especially Christians
and Jews, who share a "unique fraternity rooted in the providential design of God who accompanies their history."
Thief sentenced BOSTON (CNS) - One of two men who snatched a chalice, paten and ciborium off the altar during a Mass last June in Lawrence has been sentenced to three to five years in state prison. David Cedeno, a I7-year-old high school dropout, "stupidly thought that he could feed his drug habit by pawning the sacred vessels," said an editorial in Boston's archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot.
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50-foot Mary statue WINDSOR, Ohio (CNS) What its creators believe will be the world's tallest statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe is taking shape in the fields of a 50-acre farm outside tiny Windsor in northeastern Ohio. The statue is part of a Catholic couple's still-evolving dream to use their farm as a place for visitors to enjoy family-l;entered activities while learning about the Catholic faith. The Servants of Mary Center for Peace is in the process of becoming a shrine, a retreat center and a place for families to spend a peaceful day together. The 50-foot staiue is now' under construction in a sea of mud and concrete on Ed and Pat Heinz's land.
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